2011 Reflections, 2012 Goals

Doesn't everyone who goes to the Rodin Museum have a photo like this?

While sewing recently, I got reflective about how much I’ve learned in sewing this past year, and what I’d like to accomplish this year.  I got my sewing machine a little over a year ago, because I have a decent job, but I don’t find it very inspiring, and I felt I really needed something creative in my life to help balance out the everyday responsibilities.  Sewing has definitely done that for me.  I find sewing very relaxing, almost meditative, probably because I usually sew at night (or occasionally during nap time) when the house is really quiet.  It’s just me and the machine.  Without the noise of every day life, thoughts and reflections just naturally percolate to the surface.  It’s a good time to sort out your thoughts and quiet all the anxieties that seek out your attention during the day.  I find a lot of satisfaction in being able to create things, too.  I think art and creativity are requirements in life, even though they often get set aside for more practical things.

Why “hidden in the hem”?

When I thought about starting a blog to talk about my sewing projects, all the typical titles came to mind: “i love fabric,” “confessions of a fabric addict,” something using the word “sew,” as in “my sew-called life.”  Well, it turns out other people have thought of these titles, too, and they had already taken them.  So, this required me to think a little more creatively.  I came up with a different title, “More Fabric Please!” but then one day, “hidden in the hem” came to me, and it felt like just the right title. 

So, what is hidden in the hem?, you ask.  If you’ve been reading this blog, you might say more fabric?!  ha!  No, no.

Last summer, after my daughter was born, I was still decorating her room, and I got this idea to hang a peg shelf in her room and hang a cute dress on one of the pegs.  (I totally got the idea from a blog I read, so not an original idea at all.)  My daughter had a little pink tutu onesie that she’d already outgrown that I thought would be cute to display on the peg shelf.  Then, during one of those middle of the night feedings, I got the idea that I would also hang this shirt that my mom made for me when I was little.  My mom had kept this shirt for years and gave it to me to keep a few years ago.  After multiple moves, I wasn’t quite sure where it was.  While my mom is a pack rat, I’m a purger.  I really feared that maybe I had thrown this shirt away. 

But, no, I found it in one of the plastic bins in the garage.  I think it goes perfectly with the tutu onesie. 

Recently, when I started sewing, it occurred to me how special handmade things are.  It’s sad that home sewing is such a dying art, because there is so much personality and character in everything that is handmade.  I mean, there is always a story behind it, right?  Like, the hours that went into making it, the search for the perfect fabric, or all the mistakes made along the way.  Oh, the mistakes are always fun to share, aren't they?

And it brought me back to this shirt hanging in my daughter’s room and the story behind this shirt.  My mom made me this shirt when I was four years old.  It’s the shirt I wore when we escaped Vietnam.  My mom had sewn a gold chain into the hem, so that if we were attacked by pirates (which we were), they would not be able to find it.  And I remember, when we got to the refuge camp, my mom ripping out the seams and taking out the gold chain, which she used to pay for a telegram to my dad to let him know where we were.

So much history in this little shirt.  So glad my mom kept it.  So glad I never gave it to the Goodwill.

 
It sits next to my daughter’s tutu onesie, so that she’ll one day know the story of the women who came before her, and how far that shirt traveled to hang next to her tutu onesie.

It's held up pretty well, hasn't it?  It has lots of great details, too.

Tilted pocket:

Peter Pan collar:

(I just noticed that the seams are covered.  Wow.)

Gathering:

I have a confession to make

I hoard fabric. 

Over the years, I’ve done some sewing here and there.  In graduate school, I bought a $20 sewing machine and made my own curtains and some blankets for my niece and nephew.  But never any clothes.  I did grow up watching my mom sew, and I remember a lot of things she told me about sewing.  It was only this past year, when I had my baby girl, that I started to seriously think about making clothes.  Clothes for her, of course.  There is something about those teeny tiny girl’s dresses that are irresistible. 

And that’s where my obsession with er, admiration and love for fabric began.  I’d bought my first pattern, a pillowcase dress, and I’d started looking around for fabrics to make the dress.  Who knew there was so much beautiful fabric in the world?  I ended up with a box of fabric and a long list of projects on my to-do list, even before I’d bought my new sewing machine.  (My $20 sewing machine got lost somewhere in our many moves.) 

When I finally did get the sewing machine, I found myself hesitant to use any of the beautiful fabric that I had bought, because, well, it was so beautiful.  I wouldn’t want to cut it up and ruin it.  I’d much rather go out to Joann Fabrics and get some discount fabric to cut up.  I keep collecting more lovely fabric but not wanting to use it.  I now have a tub of fabric, which I store on a shelf in my bedroom closet.  It’s gotten so heavy, I have to have my husband bring it down and put it away again.  He keeps commenting that he thought the more you sew, the less fabric you should have.  Such navïeté. 

So, I started this blog as a place to talk about my sewing projects, as I make an effort to use more of the fabric I've accumulated.  Maybe I will even make that pillowcase dress one day. 

Here’s to recovery from fabric hoarding...

 

(although this post is backdated to December 2010, this picture was actually taken March 2011, so it did take a few months to accumulate all this fabric!)