|
|
It's just after 4:30 PM on Sunday. Happy February.
|
If I'm being completely honest (I usually am, it is both admirable and annoying), I'm not feeling it this week. I'd love to babble on to you about whatever my heart desires, but considering the climate, I'm feeling like a wrung rag. My heart desires more safety, more security, more compassion, more intentional slowing down, more being present. So writing this is good for my silly little heart. Maybe writing something would be good for your silly little heart. Intentional slowing down, I guess it would be even better if I were writing by hand, but I make so many edits, I think that might actually drive me mad if I were to go on the conquest of sending out a handwritten newsletter- plus then you all would know my handwriting, and to me, that's deeply personal.
|
On the topic of slowing down, I guess I will report to you one of the happenings from my week, the two Sashiko-style cloths I stitched. That project sent me into a hyperfixation state, and I promptly went out and bought two 6-packs of flour sack towels to turn into 24 blank slates for more Sashiko. To all my sewists out there- or any sort of crafter, I suppose- I highly recommend doing a project that makes you repeat things 24 times, but I also strongly encourage you not to do it. I learned a lot about myself and the repetitive process.
|
See, the process I embarked on consumed the better part of two days, and it was excruciating for someone so addicted to stimulus like me. Now, I will preface this by saying I've been a good patient and listened to my Psychiatrist's recommendation to take my Ritalin in the morning, so I should be in a good state to focus and get things done.. ha. ha.
|
Buy towels, easy. Take towels home, out of the package, wash and dry; easy. Iron towels... still easy but beginning to test my attention. Then, fold in half and iron the towels AGAIN, making sure they're even. Then, fold into quarters and iron, AGAIN, making sure all the hemmed edges are aligned to get the most out of the towels. Still easy, but remember I'm doing this 12 times at THIS point.. Now, to cut along the quarter fold (effectively cutting each towel in half), so there will be two large rectangular shapes: two edges have hems, one edge is cut, and one is on fold. Not bad. Now, cut off the hems into a nice, even piece of textile to go to the sewing machine. Still not bad, I think I actually enjoyed this part of the process the most. (I'm going to acknowledge that I know this is wordy, hard to follow, and I've probably lost some of you already, and if not, HI! thanks :) Welcome to the intermission. Now the intermission is over. So quick you almost missed it!) Now there are 24 cloths with three raw edges and a fold on the last side. Next step is sewing them together, leaving a gap near the folded edge, so that they're able to be turned inside out. This part wasn't too bad, either. I actually took advantage of the opportunity to "floor it" (floor my sewing machine, that is), and ya know, for a little domestic machine, that fucker RIPS. I was so surprised at how fast it could sew! I will rarely use this speed, as I prefer to, again, slow down intentionally, when making garments, but man, it was wicked fun to keep pressing on through this process that was already dragging. After sewing them all, trimming their loose threads, and cutting the corners (funny that this is used colloquially as a shortcut, when in sewing we cut/ clip the corners so that when you flip the seam there is less bulk. I digress), it was time to flip them right sides out. I used a chopstick to push out the corners, and then, it was time, once more, to....IRON. BUT!!! BUT BUT BUT! This was the last step. Pressing out all the seams on 24 cloths, all so that I can stitch more Sashiko without doing all that prep work. I hit a huge wall here. I was DONE. I couldn't fathom doing the same, mundane, slightly frustrating, somewhat tedious thing 24 times over. I forced my stupid little ADHD brain to finish the thing. This is huge for me. This time, I got a different feeling after finishing, because there was no immediate satisfaction of having a new garment or gift. The only thing I really had to reward myself with was the fact that it was DONE. I recognize the ease this will provide me in the future, but current me is still exhausted from the prep work, so I am still hopeful that future me will appreciate the ease of picking a pattern and thread, drawing the grid, and stitching, with no additional prep.
|
You still here? Cool.. cool.. I can't say the same, I'm about half here, but I know half is better than none, so were rolling with it. I know I'm really just writing into the void here, and that any questions I ask are inherently rhetorical, but how are you? You doing alright? I've noticed today's society doesn't put much emphasis on checking in with yourself or spending time just being with your body. (This is the result of the somatic therapy I'm doing seeping out.) You are always with yourself, inside your body, but how often are you conscious about that? Sure, I'm a yoga teacher, so I think about this stuff differently. That's just it, though, I am a yoga teacher, not an instructor. Of course, part of guiding a class is that I must give instructions. What is important to recognize here is that instruction gives direction, teaching gives knowledge. There's some philosophy for you, neatly packaged into one sentence, relying heavily on semantics.
|
I don't know y'all. Did I do it? Is this satisfactory? Is this.. a newsletter? I guess it is my newsletter, so only I get to decide that, but there is a part of me that wants you to enjoy this, too. I hope you did. Or maybe, you didn't. You're here now, though, at the end of my ramble, having read something other than horrible news or a misleading caption, maybe you thought a little bit, even if it was "okay, Julia", and rolled your eyes. As always, I thank you, reader. For going on this wild ride with me. This week marks our halfway point to my goal of a weekly newsletter for a year. (spoiler alert, I really do enjoy doing this, so I plan on continuing these for an indefinite amount of time, but as always, the unsubscribe button is below, and I take no offense.)
|
|
I'm going to insert some images of the two patterns I hand-stitched this week below. I've never sent you photos before, and it feels.. weird. I'm proud of them, though, and maybe having a visual will help you understand why I willingly put myself through 24 levels of personal hell.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
the first cloth I did. Kakinohana or Persimmon flower.
|
|
its done with just vertical and horizontal lines.
|
|
|
from what I gather Tsuno is antler, and Kikkou is Hexagon.
|
|
I liked this one, either horizontal or vertical lines, and then two diagonals.
|
|
|
pile of 24 finished cloths.
|
|
|
|
|
