A skirt, and thoughts on the creative process

It's closing in on winter, the snow remains on the ground off the pathways even though it's a few degrees plus, and there's that chill in the air. So yesterday I gave in, and put on a winterskirt =) A bit silly to wait so long, when I just love my skirts in warm wool! This one I used for the first time ever yesterday, but it's a skirt with many memories. My father gave it to my mother somewhere in the mid 80s, after one of his buisnesstrpis, and it was her favorite for many years. In most of my early childhood memeories she's wearing this skirt! It doesn't fit her nowadays, and so she passed it on to me. It may be 80s, but doesn't it have a strong late 40s feel to it?

On another note: skirtlengths! I realised while trying on my winterskirts that they're all about 5 cm / 2" longer than the summerskirts! Makes sense, for warmth and so on, but I also believe it has something to do with the material, wool drapes so differently from cotton. Does the skirts and dresses in your closet tell the same tale?

Last week I was pretty out of it (darn wisdom tooth!), so I'm afraid I missed my T hursday creative post... Yesterday I was at a fabricstore. Just to buy some sewing notion. Not fabric, I have too much fabric, too many projects just waiting to be realised. So I was not. going. to. even. look. at fabric. Who was I trying to fool? Seriously? =) I walked in, and there was the perfect coatfabric for my sister. Perfect! It was as if someone had made a fabric to match her soul and her very essence of being. And she's been wanting a spring jacket... She doesn't feel up to sewing one herself, but I could make it for her!

There my brain finally cought up with itself, and I remembered all my projects, all the things I want to make. I started thinking about how my brain works around sewing, and here's where I landed: I can never have just one project in my mind. I'm constantly constructing garments, from patternchanges to hemming and everything in between, in my mind. While working on one project, my mind can one afternoon totally skip to another.

This insight is far from new to me and before I've always seen this as a lack of charachter. What struck me yesterday is that maybe it's not. Maybe it's how I keep myself motivated. Just thinking of one project would bore me, and in the long run make me put down the project at hand to never finish it. But now, I take a vacation now and then to a future project, and so keeps the interest for the creative process itself alive. I never start drafting patterns or cutting out a new pattern before the on-going one is finished (the coat being the exeption to the rule), so this divided attention doesn't disturb the order in which the projects get done, altough it might prolong the process. Maybe that's why it takes me so much longer to finish projects than other sewists I know? Because I am slow, I know that. But things do get done, eventually.

So maybe it's time to go a bit easier on myself? What I've seen as a charachter flaw might instead be viewed as a creative strength, something that keeps the creative process going. Most importantly, it keeps the sewing fun, and that is after all the whole point! Another benefit is that all my projects are very well planned. I've turned the pattern and the pieces around and around in my head so many times that when I actually get to sewing, I've already worked out many of the problems that would otherwise have presented themselves as I went along.

So what conclusions to make from all this? It's ok to plan as long as one doesn't cut the fabric? Or just that I sometimes needs to go a bit easier on myself? One thing is for sure, though: I am not allowed to buy fabrics for more projects! (For myself, at least. Kajsa's spring jacket is still an idea) Why? Because I almost can't close the fabric cabinet as it is! =)

Now I'm off to cut out the second toille for the coat, a toille that might be upgraded to a summercoat if it behaves properly. =) Hope you're all having a great creative week!

Love, Erika