Saturday, May 22, 2010

Alien Fabric


I never used to plan my sewing. I would just make whatever I felt like making and buy whatever caught my fancy. I liked to think I was the Johnny Depp of sewistas...you know...a pirate!(we don't need no stinking SWAPS!).
But with age and experience comes, one hopes, wisdom. Just like with home cooking, we can't always make chocolate brownies all the time (or we should not make chocolate brownies all the time), into each life some salad must fall. A sewista must plan or be faced with a closet of delightful orphans, none of which can be worn with anything else.
At one point in my life, I decided that I would only have black, white, and tan shoes. Order in the Closet! Rules! I would no longer indulge in blue or brown shoes, because they could only be worn with a very few things. (This rule didn't last long, I have a zillion shoes in many colors). But the impulse was good. Fashion rules we make for ourselves are kind of like diets, aren't they? We decide - NO MORE BROWN! Or orange or whatever the offending item is, and we purge and sort and soon all remnants of the evil brown are gone from our lives, like what we should do with an ex-boyfriend's pictures.
Now I am sorting my fabric and patterns and really seeing and thinking about what I have already, and asking those existentialist questions that every sewista must eventually ask herself: Why did I buy so many ball gown patterns? Will I ever be size 12 again? and: Who is all of this hot pink double knit for, and why is she storing it in my sewing cave? (I don't even wear hot pink! Who bought this? Where did it come from? Are aliens adding fabric to my room at night?)
What patterns and fabrics have aliens added to your sewing room?

4 comments:

judi0044 said...

I just joined our newly formed ASG neighborhood group. She has us bringing unwanted fabric pieces to donate or exchange at each meeting. I don't have a large stash but this is a great way to share. Timely post - thanks for bringing it to mind.

Beangirl said...

I have no less than four (FOUR) patterns for wrap-over blouses (not including the many many version of said item that come in BWOF/BS). Why do I have these? Not. One. Flippin'. Clue.



Do you need some wrap-over blouse patterns?

Beangirl said...

PS When I clicked on the link, I was hoping I was going to see that you made something atrocious out of alien print fabric. Like a ballgown.

AuntieAllyn said...

I have a number of gorgeous evening-wear patterns . . . I'm hoping that one of these days (decades) I'll have a reason to actually make one of them!