By Brienne

Why I Sew (and Knit)

This post was originally featured on the Kids Clothes Week Blog last February:)

I spend as much time as I can making things. And even when I can’t, it consumes my thoughts. And kids things in particular. As I considered this post over the last few weeks, I couldn’t come up with exactly what it was that compels me to make. Compulsion is the nature of it, to be sure – but why?

There was a time when my marriage was new and my babies were both so little and unfamiliar that hand-making helped me to make sense of domesticity – a concept that I had always flailed hard against.

But that’s not why for me anymore.

As I worked on this leather-feathered vest (using this pattern), I finished listening to a novel, The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey. About midway through, the book’s writer answered this question for me and much more eloquently than I could have.

“In the evenings, she lit a lamp and unfolded the fabric on the table. Following the pattern offered a kind of comfort, a quiet balance [to her day's work which was] coarse, exhausting [and unpredictable]. Sewing was different. She knew if she was patient and meticulous, if she carefully followed the lines, took each step as it came, and obeyed the rules, that in the end when it was turned right-side out, it would be just how it was meant to be (205-6).”

That passage about a woman sewing a coat for a child is one that I’ll be thinking about for a long time. Even though she’s musing there about stitching, the passage also contributes to the book’s persistent theme of impermanence. The stitching, it helps us to cope with the fleeting nature of things. Of kids and of youth and of thwarted meant-to-bes. And, I think, that’s why I do it.

 Joining Frontier Dreams readers today over here:) And the Small Things knitters over here:)

 

Mushroom Printing: A Love Story

So, you know that saying that, "behind every good man is a great woman..." blah, blah, blah? Well, I'd like to think that I am an adequate mate and a whole-hearted mom. But really, this guy. He's the real brains of this operation. It was he who gently urged me, one step at a time, back to school, he who lead the home and rural deliveries of our two children and he who bought me a sewing machine that was way out of our price range a couple of years ago to help me to do what I loved. It is he who now sits reading Teach Your Own while the littles squirm through their bedtime Sparkle Stories. And he who skates into the kitchen to give me a thumbs up, meaning: "let's do this homeschool thing!" while I lazily slurp a glass of wine and browse cookbooks. 

It is he who has been the brawn behind some of my favorite sewn items. And when I say he has been the "brawn," I mean he designed and printed things like this piliated woodpecker tee and tote and this Valentines Day tee. 

But, you know, the guy works more than full time designing and building stuff and so, I can't always lean on him. And I wanted to start printing on fabric myself!!! It is my secret dream to get to print on fabric for real, like in large scale someday. So, in June, when he was exhausted after a big bike race and my daughter brought in the sweetest little mushroom from outside, the learning could wait no  longer.   

Armed with the new experience of having made a stamp for the very first time in Maya Made's class at Squam, I set to work sketching the the mushroom and transferring it to the stamp surface. Once you have the drawing complete, you just flip it over onto the stamp surface and then rub the back of the drawing with a pencil to transfer it - it's super slick and easy! I had never before seen this pink eraser type stampy stuff but it is great because you can easily cut away the excess so that the print doesn't show the carving lines around the drawing. 

Naturally, I made a Flashback Tee with Geranium-style flutter sleeves first. 

It was a little too much flutter for me and the stamp washed away in the wash even after heat setting:( 

So, next, I worked at trying to use fabric paint to stamp with but with the delicate little gills - it just wasn't working. The grooves were getting clogged with paint. So, I went for a freezer paper stencil and I'm totally in love! Another School Bus Tee for my boy . 

Plus a high low swing tee for her using more of this dreamy fabric that I used to make his pocket tee. Okay, gratuitous photos of the mushroom print, since I guess that you can't really tell the difference between the brown tee above and the grey one below... 

Don't you think that Mr. Moody should get a mushroom tee of his own? I just purchased the yarn to make him this epic sweater (the guy in the yarn shop told me that he's never actually seen one finished) so, perhaps if I'm able to accomplish that I'll have evened our scores? 

Photo by Brooklyn Tweed. Source

 

 

Summer Solstice in Snapshots

 

Home

I am here. I just returned home from a week of magic in the New Hampshire woods. And in the weeks preceeding there was so, so much sewing but no time for the blog kind of sharing. I feel so grateful for having had the opportunity to participate in the beauty of Squam again. And  I'm really glad to be home and to be joining the other parents on the bleachers for a season of tee ball. 

There was a crafting extravaganza before I left and between making for sale and making to wear, I have so much that I want to share. In the meantime, though, I am soaking up the long summer days by watching my littles and kissing my date. 

How are you passing these well-earned summer days?

Sunday

How did it go, dear friends? Were you treated well? Did you meet the day with an open mind and with your whole heart? 

We had a very peaceful weekend. I tried to unchain myself from the sewing room and I managed to do so for at least a couple of hours of daylight:) 

I was given a gift certificate for yarn from my daughter and it will be this to use for another go at the Lila. My first attempt is over here. 

We had our picture taken as a family.

 

Many of the businesses in town are seasonal and we patronize them with glee when they open in the spring. We had dinner out. 

We played beauty shop (and when I say "we," I mean my sister, with my daughter - I am no good at all the-things-girl, but she is!)

Please treat yourself to Sylvia Bourstein's "What we Nurture". 

And watch this, it only takes a second. 

Happy Mother's Day, however it finds you. 

P.S. My son's green polka dot hat was made from Leila and Ben's Little Cap Pattern for the freshly released issue of STYLO magazine

Joining Frontier Dreams readers today over here. 

Picture Pouch

So, this is one of those projects... It's one of those projects that gets in touch with the you who started sewing to make something special or something. With the you who felt sentimental enough about her new boyfriend to hazard a selfie with him in the frame. With him, with you, with sunburn and a kiss in the frame. 

It's a glorified open wide pouch - the parts are a bit bigger than the pattern calls for - but what an excellent shape. 

In the wee hours before I drove through a snowstorm to board a plane to somewhere that promised to be warm - I had to make something. A memory pouch, a homage to the last time we vacationed together. Before there were houses or cars, kids, or a credit card for goodness sake.

I love the pouch, though I'm not sure if it's super cool or something else:) I used some gray linen for the top, leftover from her button placket dress plus some leather scraps leftover from this tote.

It's making me happy and making my beaux laugh while we're away from home. Here's to the hoping you're getting some sunshine where you are and that we all enjoy many more years of foolishness.

Joining Frontier Dreams Readers today over in Nicole's Space.