I’m making a custom reconstructed tie skirt for someone. I’m almost all the way through piecing the top. (I’m sorry for the lack of light. Please imagine when looking at these photos that they are a bit lighter, even if you have to squint a bit, because if I got the laptop out and adjusted the colour balance it would take me much longer and I might sound a tiny bit grumpy).
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| Ties and pink woodchip! I don't know why they haven't asked me to be on Kirstie's Homemade Home |
I hit tie pay dirt with this skirt. I found ties, in the right colours, in substantial silk, for reasonable prices, locally. How often does that happen? It doesn’t happen. I love how they’re going together, and I hope the recipient likes it.
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| There. Now you can see a bit better |
I’ve been thinking, and I think the thing I like about any kind of patchwork is the balance between creativity and process: the fun of putting the colours together, the – I hesitate to say, tedium, but you know what I mean, of sewing it all together, slowly, piece by piece. It’s like a lesson in life: inspiration only gets you so far, and the rest is dogged sewing, sewing, sewing and pressing seams open. (Do you know what you could do, actually, though?
You could make patchwork out of everyday life. You could go about combining random things that were interesting colours, photographing them quickly, and then letting them go on their way. So for instance, you could put some lemons next to something cobalt blue, or arrange tomatoes on green grass (in the summer), surround a ginger dog with oranges, or something like that. I may resurrect my Guerrilla Patchwork idea in a new way!).
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| Sewing in inadequate light, how Dickensian. I'm poor but I'm honest, Guv'nor |
I’m sewing while listening to Imagine and pondering
How Do You Sleep. How could anyone be so rude about the man who gave us
The Frog Chorus? Incomprehensible.
And I was admiring this video earlier. This is the thing: I’m not surprised it likes it (says she carefully), because cats are, well, they are interesting creatures. I’m just surprised how they found out about it to start with. I will definitely not be doing this to my Aunty Kath’s Big Hairy Ginger AKA Beowulf when I see him over Christmas, though, because I’m not up to date on my tetanus shots and I understand Casualty on New Year’s Eve is not that much fun.
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6 comments:
I'm liking the tie skirt. Maybe I'll make one, when I lose about 6 inches off my hips! I wouldn't try cat spanking with my cat, I would lose one if not both eyes.
I love the third paragraph even more than I love the rest of the post, no offense to paragraphs 1, 2, and 4: "You could make patchwork out of everyday life - yes!" Literally and metaphorically.
I'm a true believer that tedium is necessary for the creativity process. When we're busy all the time, we don't have time for inspiration, or creative problem solving, let alone the actual "sit down and put the pieces together to make the vision real" part of it all.
I tell my daughters this, that they need to be bored sometimes to give their brains a chance to exercise the creative side (they nod but then continue on planning their busy social lives, so it is good to get somewhere else to use that particular soapbox).
I love the skirt! It's fabulous. And tedium is good for you. I agree with Marushka- if we were busy all the time with new and exciting things, we'd never be creative.
That is unique way to use ties. Patchwork is much like life. We have a tendency to want to use just the pretty fabrics. The plain and ugly fabrics thrown in give it character and make the pretty fabrics stand out more.
My cats like that. I was thinking wow, he's hitting that cat awfully hard, then I realized it was empty room and the sound was louder.
It gets them all excited and they turn around and give me a love bite on the arm. I did it to my one cat while the other was asleep on the other side of the bed. Excited cat ran over and pounced sleeping cat.
Crafty Cripple. a/ You don't need to lose 6 inches off your hips, don't make me do my rant about All Women Are Perfect Just As They Are (you really don't, though ;-) ), b/ You could make a wrap skirt instead, because the way the ties go together lends itself to a wrap, the problem is you would need more ties.
Definitely agreeing that boredom needs to be part of life! I'm misremembering this but I'm sure there was some psychological study or other that said it was an important part of emotional development!
Denise, I'm trying not to say, how did you discover your cats liked to be spanked? But I'm failing. (I have got a pudding though, ready to send!).
I swatted one of their bottoms once for being quite naughty. It ended up being more of reward than a deterrent.
Yay! I feel like a Dickens' character with Dammit playing Tiny Tim. Though he's not sickly, just sadly deprived of most things English.
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