analog me

Tying up loose ends

As is often the case, the most enlightening aspect of my last post was the comments. The collective wisdom seems to be:

1.  "Your house is not an alternative landfill." (Thanks Amy.)
2. Clear the clutter: sell some stuff on Ebay, donate the rest.
3. Organize what you want to keep. 
4. Use the Ebay money to buy only what you really want. 

So, steps 1 and 2 are in action. I'm finding that the hardest things to get rid of are half-finished projects that I began with so much hope and enthusiasm and then, for whatever reason, became tired of and forgot.

Embroidered linen hand towels REALLY? 

With unfinished knitting, I ripped some of the projects out and rewound them. It was initially hard to start yanking on a string to unravel the hours of work, but as the project morphed from knitted fabric back to a simple strand of yarn, I felt like an Incomplete was being erased from my crafting transcript. I was left with yarn with no discernible past ready to be somebody else's dream project. 

Sock yarn and terrarium mosses

I wish the same could be done with botched sewing—or botched anything, for that matter.

At a deeper level, a most thoughtful comment came from teaweed:  "I guess the ways that potentials have been interfering with actuals in my life has been percolating in the back of my mind."

I think this is at the very the very base of what all creative people struggle with. For me to be creative and productive I need both inspiration (patterns, pictures, mental images) and "art materials." Yet, when there are too many ideas and too much stuff (and especially, too much of both) the masses of potential and partial projects agitating for attention don't leave any space for actual creativity.

I need to discard old projects that didn't work out, particularly those remind me of failure or are preventing me from moving on. Easier said than done. Very little is harder than giving up on something that just didn't work out—especially when I'm the responsible one. 

And that brings me to the third theme in the comments: Organize what I want to keep, and decide exactly what I want to let into my stash (and, I will add, into my "to do" list).

At first this seems like work, the kind of detail work I don't like and am trying to do less of. But, on the other hand, it could be rather fun if I were to undertake it not in as an inventory clerk but as as a "creative wardrobe designer." I love Alssea's idea of sketching ideas and adding swatches. If I took the time to make a croqui like she and some other lovely sewing peeps have done, I think it could take the whole organization process to a whole new level of creativity and distraction. Which could be a problem in itself.

How do you all get rid of past projects and plan your future ones? Is there more method or madness?

The Dark Side of Thrift

I recently found this in a bag of sewing notions I "rescued."

On one hand, I had some respect for the person who revered these tiny lengths of thread enough to carefully wind them on an empty spool. On the other hand, I was a bit horrified to think what this person's surroundings must have been filled with. Mountains of tiny fabric scraps too small to use? Old envelopes wrapped with a few feet of thread? Boxes full of treasured bias tape? Umm. . .it sounds a bit like my "sewing" space which seems to collect so much junk I sometimes can't sew. Am I a sewing hoarder?

As you may have guessed, I buy a lot of my sewing materials at thrift stores. I used to think this was a good thing: I rescue stuff from the trash, make useful stuff from it, and save money and resources. 

It's true that a lot of my favorite projects were made from thrift store fabric. The Chicken Dressand my Orangey Ginger make me smile when I see them hanging in my closet. But that's mostly what they do: hang in the closet. I usually wear my home-sewn solid skirts and pants and the comfy knit shirts. Guess what? decent lengths of good quality, basic fabrics are few and far between in thrift stores.

I have also been examining my all expenditures more closely and, I tell you, its shocking to see how much it costs to save money.

Almost every time I pop into a thrift store to see if I can find something I need want for a bargain, I end up spending 15 bucks on something I might need someday. But if don't really need it, it's not a bargain at all. 

And then there is the really dark side of thrift. Often I buy something and only add it to my stash thus diverting stuff from the waste stream into my closet. Then I have to spend a lot of time washing, organizing and storing stuff. Is this really where I want all the rejected fabric of South Minneapolis to find a final resting spot? In the end I end up making a lot of work for myself just managing the stuff.

Sometimes I have the idea for a new project but no appropriate materials, so I end up making something I want less just to use up with what I have. I'm going to keep sewing with what I have  but I think I need to be the boss of it. I'm not quite sure how to do that, but I'm guessing I need less stuff and a better organizing system— like a booklet of swatches perhaps? Any ideas?

I'm going to get rid of more stuff, and I'm going to stop buying stuff "just in case" I might want to use it someday.

As for that little spool of threads. I'm not sure what to do with it. Should I throw it out now— or save it as a warning to myself?

 

Random Tuesday

Some of my readers have been saying things about "Spring Dresses." For example, it was suggested that I should re-make that dress for Spring. As you might have seen from my latest high fashion photo shoot, we here in Minnesota are still in what a dear friend calls "Sepia Season." 

Yes, I should be sewing for Spring, but this is hardly inspiring. I think that is one reason flowers are so welcome on Valentines Day. It really is a time when we need to soak up the colors and scents of opalescent petals. I recently brought some hyacinth bulbs out of a dark, cold basement closet where I had been "forcing" them. ( I always have hated that term.)  Within days, they began turning from yellow to green, and then they unfolded into fragrant bloom.

Happy Valentine's Day!  A tiny bit of Spring in the Winter. 

Maybe if I spend more time staring it this I will know what to sew for Spring.  How do the rest of you prepare for yourself for Spring? Seed Catalogs? Fashion Magazines?  Daydreams?

And, just because I know you can't think about anything else, a reader over at Pattern Review tipped me off to the origins of the Evil Woman.

             Evil Woman                        Charlotte Rampling

Now you can stop obessing about that and move on to other things.

E-E-Evil Woman

Sewing this pattern up was a real blast to the past.

Not only did I have a genuine 1973 sewing pattern, a vintage metal zipper, my 1964 sewing machine and some vintage rayon challis—but this project even came with an soundtrack from the right era!

Yes, I should have been wary of that witchy looking chica on the pattern envelope.

She, who with her nefarious sidekick whispered these sweet nothings:

Of course, the fault was mostly mine. After a too-quick tissue fit, I decided I needed only one adjustment to the pattern: an enlarged bicep. The sewing was pretty easy, but the fabric was a lot less restrictive than the pattern tissue and even with some on-the-fly adjustments, I ended up with a dress with a saggy surplice front, a baggy bodice, and giant, floppy upper arms. There I stood staring at myself in the mirror, my dreams of looking like a 1970s goddess seeming to be crushed beneath a pair of giant, malevolent Famolares

And then, these lines burst into my head; "You made a fool of me, but then those broken dreams have got to end. . . "

So as I ripped and re-sewed, re-gathered and tucked I also sang to that nasty pattern envelope woman: 

  

Okay, I admit I also said some other things to her; things too awful to repeat here.

Finally, I finished things up. Then I cut too much off the bottom and hemmed it up to a ridiculously short length, ripped that out and then re-hemmed it. So I am done now, but the Evil Woman and I haven't really made up yet.

When we start talking again, I will find a fog machine and take some pictures.

P.S. Anyone have some vintage, knee-high black vinyl boots I can borrow to wear with this? Maybe Barbarella?