Talking Tuesday: It is Good That You Exist

There's an old George Carlin routine that goes, "You know how when you are driving on the road, everyone going faster than you is a maniac, but everyone going slower is an idiot?"

Yes, that. 

Lately, I have a sort of spiky feeling inside me, one that doesn't want to give people the benefit of the doubt, doesn't want to give way, doesn't want to try to understand.  It's the ragey feeling that Carlin describes so well. It's not generally how I think about people or life in general, so it feels awful to feel like this.

I keep going back to Ulrich Lehner's bit in God Is Not Nice, where he talks about the most basic definition of love. It is acknowledging: It is good that you exist. 

That's it.  Everything that proceeds from that statement then determines how we treat the other person and interact with them.  Sounds simple, but it isn't, not really. Not when you get down under the statement and think about what it means to say: it is good that you exist.

I keep thinking too how we are all grieving--as a nation, as a world--for all that has been lost in the past months, and for all that will not be in the months to come.  We're not very good at grieving, culturally speaking, so it comes out in weird ways.  There's been denial and anger, depression and bargaining, but I don't think any of us has come to real acceptance of the thing.  That life is never going to be as it was, and some things are going to be forever changed. 

Does that mean we will always feel out of control and crazy?  No.  Does that mean that the current stage is the "new normal?"  Of course not.  But it does mean that this maelstrom of grief has to be gone through in order to emerge on the other side in a place of healing and growth.  If we don't go through it, the grief will continue to haunt us, to leak around the edges until it has its way.  There's no way forward but through the tunnel.

It's a messy business, all of it.

Color-Blocking for Friends (and Self-Enabling While Doing So)

I mentioned that I did a bit of sewing for a friend?  It was not commissioned work, just some things I made for her because we've been talking about sewing and clothes for a long time, and she has three very young kids and limited sewing time for herself.  I knew she needed a few things for summer, so I decided to make her some!  Surprise sewing is a thing, right?  I should add that we live several hours apart in different states, so it was an interesting set of projects for me!  (And probably not the last--it was quite satisfying to make these things).

First was a blue skirt, made from my Indigo dress of last summer.  I had tried to wear it a couple times this spring and knew it was a no-go.  That pattern is really not working well for my style, and after the Miss Frizzle comment from a passerby (she meant well, but still), I just couldn't.

Anyway, I had some of the fabric left over, and I knew that the skirt part of the dress would be a good starting point for the style that my friend was interested in.  She is about five inches taller than me, and her measurements are different, so I let out the very deep hem and was glad of my measuring mistake last summer.  (#serendipity)  I added two straight panels to the side seams to give the garment the proper amount of fit and ease, and then popped an elastic-backed waistband on it, using my Rose skirt hack as a guide.  The end result is bit more like my Everday pink clay skirt alteration, but it achieved the desired silhouette, so I don't really care how I got there!  And yay for repurposing good fabric!  I knew it would be a great fit for my friend's wardrobe, and crossed my fingers that it would fit her (it did!)

Next I set my sights on making a boxy cropped top for her.  She made a bunch of Shirt No. 1s a while back, but I knew she was unhappy with some aspects of the fit, so I decided to try the Colette Sorbetto with the Washi cap sleeve applied, but I also wanted to try the hacked Emerald top, with some adjustments for good fit. 

The Sorbetto has bust darts and the Emerald doesn't, so I wasn't sure what was going to provide the best fit and comfort.  I got a little bit overambitious with my linen scraps on the Sorbetto, but I think the end result is somewhat interesting anyway.  My friend likes it, so that's what counts!

The Emerald I had intended to make entirely out of pink clay linen scraps from my skirt, but saw the very tiny red brick remnant from a dress that came out too small last year, and decided to try a bit of color blocking with that as well.  I fiddled around with what I had left and came up with a solid geometric block, and was able to squeeze out the one sleeve facing and pieced together the front facing.  There are fumes of that original scrap left. 

Ta-da!  So pretty!  (And the shirt is nice too!)  After making her Emerald, and loving the color-blocked look of it, I decided to make myself one but with more red and less pink (since that pink doesn't look super great next to my face).  Sometimes I enable myself when I make stuff for other people!  *facepalm*

I ordered another yard of the red brick linen and used up the last long scrap of pink clay linen on a stripe down the side. 

I originally thought to mimic the color blocking on my friend's with a horizontal stripe across the middle, but I didn't like the way the narrow strip looked, and I didn't have enough fabric to do without piecing in any case.  I sort of like the slightly more subdued single stripe on this one.  I could probably stand to go 1/2" shorter on the hem, so will keep that in mind for next time. 

There are some little pieces left, but I'll probably pass them to Birdie for her little projects, since they are charm block size and there are maybe six of them.  A good use of two yards of fabric, if you ask me!  It's also a nice color coordination for many different skirts in my closet, and I think will work with my fall linen skirts too, so win-win there, because it can stay pretty hot here well into September, and sometimes October is warm too. 

I'm mostly trying not to think about my sewing quantity right now, as it is functioning as a mental health booster with my kids underfoot all the time.  Under the circumstances, I think that beats a super-lean closet.  It's also stupidly hot this summer, and my laundry cycles have gotten long as my kitchen time has grown with the ongoing shortages and so forth.  So there's that.  Chalk it up to one of the many hidden costs of the pandemic, I guess.