Synchronicity

~ Liz A ~ 28 Comments

I had to smile when Deb G posted about handsewing a linen top. Just one day before I had gotten a notion to try handsewing a shirt, thinking perhaps the reason I’ve long avoided garment making was simply an aversion to machine sewing.

What little I knew about making clothing involved going to a fabric store, picking out a pattern and buying cloth. So that’s where I started … gasping when I learned a Simplicity pattern would set me back $20.

And here’s where I ended up …

I honestly enjoyed the process (more about that in a minute), but I quickly realized how very much more I needed to know than what was included in the written pattern instructions, which were absolutely mute on anything to do with hand sewing.

So I went back to Deb G’s post and started digging for books and online videos about hand sewing garments. Then decided in the meantime to work with what I had in order to have a foundation on which to build more knowledge.

Here I pause to confess that handsewing a shirt was not a new notion. Some years back, while reading up on Georgia O’Keeffe, I learned that she was an accomplished seamstress. At the time I thought it would be incredibly cool to make some of the same clothing that she wore … a crisp white linen shirt perhaps. But I came up empty when I tried to find a pattern and that’s where I left it.

Anyway, I started my recent quest with unbleached cotton muslin and quickly realized I wouldn’t be following the recipe dictated by the pattern when it called for fusible interfacing. Bah! I couldn’t see any reason for that, so I simply stitched the front facing without it …

I batted .500 when it came to the shoulder and sleeve seams (definitely my untidiest outcome) …

Patted myself on the back for coming up with a sturdy solution to the split side seams …

And likewise cobbled my way to a cuff that wasn’t at all like the simple hem called for in the pattern directions …

Now I’m impatiently waiting for books to arrive in hopes they will take me to the next level. Already I’m envisioning a flannel nightshirt and a pintucked boho patchwork smock.

And and and … what fun!

It’s about time

~ Liz A ~ 25 Comments

It started out carefully, small spirals that gradually got larger …

But the thought occurred to me that if a spiral represented time, as it did in Moon Myth …

then it might make sense to show how time varies, sometimes flying by and other times slowing to a crawl. At which point my spirals got wonkier …

I worked them in Jude’s split backstitch using 4-ply silk/cotton floss gifted by Deb, a perfect match for the colors of the beach …

And when it was finished, I was in a rush to remove the erasable marker, so I used just enough water to soak it out.

But … I didn’t rinse it thoroughly, nor did I use a dye catching cloth. And I knew better, but all I could think about was seeing the cloth dry.

Dry it was soon enough, which is when I realized the error of my ways …

Fortunately, this turned out to be a happy accident, one that was meant to be.

I dug through the pictures I took at the beach, looking for two that made absolutely no sense at the time I took them … pictures of rusted nails in the siding of the house we rented, a perfect match for the dye stained linen …

So I took one last picture of the other side …

and finally stitched together the two pillow tops, The Edge of Heaven and The Golden Hours …

making them The Beach Pillow …

just in time for a nap 😉

Perspective

~ Liz A ~ 20 Comments

While we were at the beach, it occurred to me how my perception can be so different from the reality that the camera records (and yes, the camera’s “reality” is yet another matter for consideration).

This in particular was what struck me: how my perception of the beach is that the ocean looms much larger than the sand and the sky, as in this cropped photo view …

while the uncropped image shows the ocean to be a much narrower slice of the whole landscape …

So that’s what was in my mind as I gathered cloth for the other side of The Edge of Heaven …

I imagined how how blank patches of sea and sand and sky could be combined with Deb’s cloth …

and tried out variations on my design floor …

Until the story came clear … of the sun rising in the east over a dark sea …

and then setting in the west as the golden hour illuminated both the faces of our loves and the waves beyond the dune …

Cloth holding memory yet again, in my own unique perception …

And now all that remains to discern is how it all might come together and become The Golden Hours …