Nightdress
Friday was an intense day of getting s@#$ done — ergo a lot of making, with a wide range of objects — but what gets memorialised in a piece of writing about making and materials, and what just goes down as general life-making that no-one wants to read about? That age old question - what makes it onto the front page of the paper.?..when the paper is my life, and I am both staff writer and editor.
I am some of the way through making 'The Nightdress': but — hear me out — because I don't like the fabric I chose from my immense stash, I feel no pull toward refining it, finishing it, or enjoying the process. Even cutting the pattern felt pedestrian; I made mistakes and just eyeballed it in places that called for precision. Its pieces still hang, unassembled, over the back of the chair next to the sewing machine. Maybe if I baste it, clip it together, throw it over my head, and get a sense of the fit, I'll develop some kind of attitude toward finishing it? But it's not a given.
I also managed, in an attempt to get ahead of myself and diversify my knitting stitches - and thus, learn to knit purl - to screw up the beautiful, neat brown-and-seafoam piece I was so proud of. I didn't get the first few purl stitches right, well, actually I couldn't even see them because, well, dark brown! Knitting, I am learning, is as much about seeing stuff as it is about muscle memory and repeated movements. The tension of my stitches was too tight, and in a fit of pique I ended up undoing what I'd done, only to find, like a climb on some godforsaken nasty route in the backcountry, no way back. Unlike sewing, where unpicking, stitch ripping, covering stuff with binding are all considered par for the course, and indeed, 'ingenious', knitting, as far as this relative illiterate can tell, doesn't allow such latitude. Basically get it right or lose the fight.
Eventually, after a few attempts, I took the piece off the needles and considered taking a photo and asking ChatGPT how to fix it, but, instead of admitting defeat, I went back to the materials. I picked up new needles and began again with the same yarns, comfortable in the knowledge that so much of this journey into the textile arts is about doing things and trying stuff, rather than getting it right the first time, or indeed any time. I remember that in life these days, I allow myself imperfection, nay, I invite it, as a beautiful, meaningful profundity and story to the item in becoming. I also feel that with materials, so much of the learning needs to be felt, sensed, tactile - rather than fed back to me with the haptic reassurance of my robot friends.
—
A PANEL RECONVENES, UNPROMPTED, ON THE SUBJECT OF THE PURL MISTAKE
ALPACA: I was fine, and as far as I had heard, she loved my color. Now she's blaming it. I have never once dropped a stitch in my life. This was a tension problem, and tension is a hands issue, not a fiber issue.
SEAFOAM COTTON: You think this is bad? I was savaged by fabric shears into fifteen separate balls of yarn three weeks ago. Tension - well that can be undone, relieved...cutting, separation. That's terribly final.
THE NIGHTDRESS FABRIC (from the back of the chair, unassembled, uninvited but unable to help itself): For what it's worth, I don't need her to love me. I'd just like to become a nightdress. And I think if she just gives me a chance, like, wears me, touches me, she'll change her mind. I feel a bit used, to be honest.
THE WATERCOLOUR PAPER (from its dusty pile in the closet): I didn't go anywhere, all winter. She used me to help make a beautiful seam once in spring - by sewing me onto some cloth - don't ask me how - but at least you guys are getting some action.
ALPACA: I hear you - she's a bit extractive - honestly.
THE WATERCOLOUR PAPER: I'm paper. I have a very long memory and absolutely no ego about being folded, but being pierced by a sewing machine and then discarded....no bueno.
EMILY RETURNS TO THE ATELIER AND PICKS UP HER LAPTOP AGAIN...
After a long absence, I picked up watercolour paper, paints, and inks yesterday, and made decorative cards — some for my own to-do lists, one for the cover of a book I'm making for my son, to tempt him toward higher education in Europe. This was satisfying and soothing. I've felt guilty lately about being textile-obsessed, about ignoring the vast collection of paper-based mark-making materials I accumulated — and loved working with — during that awful, miserable winter.
I've also joined a book club for textile arts and received the prompts for our inaugural meeting, end of July — which of course involved me thinking through the "assemblage" needed to fulfil these prompts exactly the (imperfect) way I'd want. I'm heavily drawn to bright orange right now — pigments, yarns, objects — so my first responses will live in that colour world. But I wanted a collecting hub for the work, not random bits and pieces gathering dog hair and dust, so I made a fabric notepad out of some discount flour sacks I found at Dollar General yesterday.
And before I could start any of this, I insisted to myself that I had to sort and organise all my textiles and sewing gear, since the materials were in a jumbled mess. I got a good way through, listening to doom-laden podcasts and the England match when I could bear it. Still more to do.
What else? I made cups of tea for my son. Pancakes for breakfast.
THE FABRIC NOTEPAD (assembled this afternoon, still faintly floury): I don't have any opinions yet. Ask me again once something's actually been written in me.
