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August 22, 2008
Other sources of fibre
On a whim, I bought a sewing machine. (My whims have not yet caught up with the reality that our savings are now spent and the end of maternity leave and going back to the office (not yet, but soon), while tinged with regret, are tinged more strongly with relief at the promise of a monthly paycheck.)
I have a torrid history with sewing machines - when people who cheerfully coexist with their machines ask, I say I haven't the patience. Which strikes them as odd, coming from a knitter. But truly, nothing drives me to fury faster than that atonal groan ('nehhhh - nehhhh') which is the sound of a sewing machine chewing up my beautiful fabric and knotting it's bobbin into a birdsnest. Knitting I can, at least usually, control. Two pointy sticks give minimum opportunity for atonal groaning. Of course your experience may vary.
But motherhood is evidently doing strange things to me. First, I want to make the boy a patchwork quilt. I have a stack of pre-cut 'I Spy' quilt squares which I will piece in a chequerboard with white to make a quilt that can be both a game (two of each fabric, find the matching pairs) and a prompt for improvised bedtime stories. I fully appreciate that there will be a minute window of opportunity for this, between him being in the big bed (at least another year I expect) and ungraciously eschewing his dear ma's handicrafts in favour of a spiderman duvet - at which point I will reclaim the quilt and cuddle up to it when I feel sad and remember how I would sit under it and tell stories to my sweet tiny boy at bedtime. I may even return it to him at some point in the future, if he's very good.
Then there were those Oliver + S patterns. Having had terrible girl clothes envy it was all I could do to not to dress Stanley in a little frock all summer long. Instead I dealt with it by making a pair of shorts. I thought the bloomeriness would fit well over his cloth nappies. The shorts were, indeed, gorgeous but alas my tiny boy is actually huge for his age and, even though I made a size 18-24 months, he barely got to wear them (he was eight months in this picture) before they were too small and in the bag marked 'baby clothes to save - in case'. Nevermind. They were fast to make and satisfyingly sweet and a good use of an old linen dress. And the next baby to wear them will look adorable.
Last, for now, was a new pushchair liner. Stanley had been sitting on the underneath part of his winter cositoes (for the uninitiated, it's like a zip up sleeping back with holes for the harness through the back part) but being navy blue it got very hot when the sun came out. This decrepit, ragged, perished and falling apart quilt has been sitting in my fabric cupboard for absolute years, but I've been unable to throw it away. It is fit for nothing, really, but I just cannot bring myself to bin all those hand stitches. So I used the winter liner as a template, and cut out one from the patchwork (reinforced with straight lines of machine quilting) and one from an old quilted cotton mattress protector, sewed them together with some home made bias binding, and used the buttonhole feature to reinforce the holes for the buggy harness. The work of an hour or two.
It may only last a year, but it's soft and pretty and it's some kind of use for that poor old raggedy quilt.
I do hope you're all well - please tell me what's inspiring you? I can't start every entry with resolutions to do better or apologies for my absence; that would be too tedious. Instead I will just do what and when I can, and content myself with composing endless posts in my head between times.
Posted by Anna at 08:11 AM | Comments (37)