All This Useless Beauty

I have so many things to be thankful for. Rob. The love of our families. The home we've made. The fact that that home is, literally, located on an island of sanity in the middle of an upside down world, an island that so many artists call home, so many who have made it their life's work to simply create beauty.

Over the weekend, we saw the Ethan Iverson Quartet play at the Village Vanguard. I closed my eyes through the first three songs, so grateful for the sounds, so grateful to have a respite. However (though you couldn't tell by the music) the musicians were having a difficult time. It was hard for them to come into work that week. Ethan admitted this after a couple of tunes, in a short impromptu speech in which he dedicated the rest of the concert to Billy Higgins: a drummer, an American, and a Muslim. The set was sublime. It was beauty.

Artists are struggling with beauty right now. Beauty feels ridiculous and ignorant right now. Useless. But for the audience, it is supremely needed. 

Each morning, we wake early (well, one of us earlier than the other), and try to start the day with something beautiful. As I search the screen for a small distraction, I think about my own small distractions, queued up to publish, becoming increasingly more ridiculous with each minute. By the time photos are taken and (hamhandedly) edited, there's some new atrocity that makes everything else... unimportant? Undone.

But Rob reminded me that this is exactly the sort of the thing we're looking for in that early morning hour, and when we find that thing, we don't consider the author to be either ridiculous or ignorant. We're thankful to sit on the couch and gaze at a bit of beauty for a moment. We're thankful to sit in a small jazz club and be surrounded by the sound of beauty.

It doesn't seem enough to create beauty, but it is not possible to fight without it. So, I'll continue to post these bits of cloth, and I'll continue to make beautiful armor that transcends at least my demeanor, if not the climate.

Will every post come with a disclaimer that I can't stand what is going on? If things continue as they are, then yes. I'm not okay with this. None of us should be. This is not America.

The sewing details.

Top: Simplicity 1099, hacked into a hi-lo top, added sleeves, & pleats to the hemline

Skirt: By Hand London's Charlotte skirt, with an added back vent

Fabric: Wax print from Mood Fabrics, using my January "fabric allowance"

I had a 6 yard cut of Supreme Wax Osikani to play with, which was extremely freeing. My immediate thought was to make a matching ensemble, full of pleats and frills and larger pattern pieces that wouldn't break up the print. I then fought myself for about an hour, thinking I should probably make something a little less "out there."

Then I reminded myself that "out there" is where I want to live.

Past Jacket, Present Future

Worst lead-in for a post ever: I honestly don't have much to say today. It's a dreary Monday, the fitting end to a long weekend full of figuring out what felt right, but mostly feeling wrong, and wronged.

Speaking of wrong: when I looked back on 2016 for the ubiquitous wrap-up, I was a little shocked at the number: 16. A garment a month. That number is ridiculously off. (ETA: Yes, it is. Because 16 does not equal a garment a month. 16 is visually similar to the year 2016. And now you know how math works in my head.) Not included, and not blogged, are the attempts at creating staples, staples which would keep my attention and not bore me to tears. AND AS YOU WELL KNOW, THERE IS NO CRYING IN SEWING.

This little diddy, made in 2016, walks that fine line, but it was not made for me. It was one of the few Christmas gifts I actually got a jump on; completed well enough in advance that I was able to take these photos on election day. Although my mood was positively ebullient after standing in line for two hours with my fellow New Yorkers, the shots came out strangely harsh, and very moody.

Apparently, my camera comes with prediction mode.

I have definitely figured out one thing that feels right, having nothing to do with saving the world, having everything to do with saving my sanity: create what I desire. And I desire the abnormal. We're not living in normal times, eh? Let's dress appropriately! I have no time for staples! My new abnormal involves beautiful armor that reflects whatever my heart desires. Ensembles for Saturn.

It has certainly helped in keeping me sane. I strongly believe that if we take care of ourselves, we can take care of others. And no matter where we stand, we need to take care of each other.

Sewing deets:

Koos jacket, Vogue patterns 1493

Materials: Denim from Chic Fabrics, Tapestry from Century 21 (not linking, because they are bossy. Go buy things from Chic Fabrics.)

Changes: I skipped all of the embellishments--if you do this, have a good look at the pattern pieces, it makes the layout MUCH simpler. I cut a size XS after reading Sarah's review on the enormous amount of ease in this. (Have a look at her crazy creative Instagram, by the way!) The hemline is not as drafted, I curved it up at the side seams.

Tips: Mark ALLLLLL of your notches on this one! I managed to sew the sleeves to the cuffs the wrong way the first time around. Notches are your friend. Impatient people skip notches. (Ask me how I know.)

A Tree Skirt.

Suddenly, and without warning, the city tore itself out of hibernation mode. There was a furious need to do something before 2017 rolled in. 

In "the business," the space between Thanksgiving and New Years gets progressively more chill, winding down to a dead stop by December 15. So, although this flurry was a welcome change, we suddenly found ourselves racing everywhere, and I suddenly found myself racing to get ALL OF THE THINGS SEWN, having previously decided to sew a gift for pretty much everyone in my life. Over a dozen items in under two weeks--and I'm talking lined jackets. I finished. I do not know how. As I wrangled wrapping four evening jackets in the car ride to our NYE celebrations, Rob cautiously inquired, so, what will you be sewing next in the new year?

I pulled myself out of a tornado of tissue paper and ribbon. WHY DO YOU ASK.

What will I sew? Well, I think it's going to be a mohair coat fashioned from a vintage blanket, featuring a horse head with a glass eye. I'm not joking. I know I'm going to take my time and enjoy it, because the moral of that car conversation was one I already know: NO MORE RUSHING ALLOWED. Rushing helps nothing. Take, for example, the skirt pictured above. This was my December MSN project, and I raced through it, desperate to have a Diane Keaton-esque ensemble to swan about in on Christmas Eve. It suffered for the pace: the pleats don't quite match, forget about print placement across the side seams-- and although I faced the hem, and gave the waistband a petersham treatment, I am 99% sure I'll be pulling this apart and putting it back together again. 

A lot of seam ripping? Yes, but I actually don't mind. It's wonderful to create better things from botched projects.

Hope you're easing yourself into this new year...may we create better things from botched!