Tag: sewing my wardrobe

This is the most exciting project I have done lately. I was saving these leather pieces from an old jacket in the hopes that some day I would make myself the perfect tote bag, which I know I will never find to buy (not at any reasonable price, for sure). Ever since finding at the flea market an amazing large hobo-style bag, however, my desperation for the ideal tote has subsided and the pieces of leather have been forgotten. Until recently, when I decided that I wanted a large pouch to keep inside my large bag, and throw in there the million little things that find house in there and prevent me from ever finding anything inside this bag without breaking a sweat.

So basically my bag needed a bag. And now it has it.

It was not a very difficult project. It took me a little less than three hours. I used the zipper from another thrifted bag that suffered some transformations and the silk dupioni lining remnant from the large bag (the large bag itself had got a new lining and new zipper before I started to use it).

I made a beautiful pouch that I cannot stop admiring. I managed to achieve this because of very kind bloggers out there who generously posted on the Internet tutorials for this kind of thing. The tutorials I that guided me through this project came from Transient Expression, Rennes, Style Scrapbook and Jezebel, and I am very thankful to these bloggers. This ouch turned out so good that it actually gives me confidence that someday, with the right piece of leather (I will need something thicker) I’ll actually be able to make a very nice tote bag. My pouch actually can fold into a very pretty clutch and it fits quite comfortable under the arm. I am not a clutch type of girl though.

I haven’t been having much time for making things lately, but this project came at the right time. I needed to focus on something else other than editing and writing. It helped. The stress or work and studying seems to have lessened and I can see things in perspective again.

I find my way back to sanity by making things by hand. We all have our ways and this is mine, I guess. It’s a good thing to know about yourself, isn’t it?

I’ve had this idea for the longest time: to make a felted tote with leather handles. I thought it difficult to realize though. How much to knit to get a good size felt? How to attach the leather straps so they don’t look homemade? How to sew the lining — by hand or by machine — so it stays nicely stretched and even? What hardware to use? The headaches of bag making…

Then one day I found at the back of the closet an old wool vest that I had knitted for my husband and after washing it became very short and very wide, because I can (would) never follow pattern directions but make it all up as I go. I tried to felt the vest some more, cut it and sewed it again to make it into a tote. I cut the straps from an old leather bag that I have fallen out of love with and sewed them by hand, to the perfect length. Then I used the zipper pulls from the same old bag to make a sort of hanging/closure type of thing, to which I added some charms. The charms play a double role, both decorative and utilitarian, as they act weigh down the leather pulls, keeping the two sides of the bag together.

I think the result is quite beautiful. It looks professionally-made and I like that it still reminds me of the old vest a little. And don’t the heart-charms are quite suitable for this Valentine’s Day post.

I have been wearing the felted bag little throughout the winter, not because I don’t like it, but because it does not match my everyday coat. But this The Sak leather bag that I ended up buying in the fall has been great.

Actually, I used it in its original form for not more than two months when I decided that it lacked something. It was too plain. A black leather bag. And the strap was a bit too long. So I cut the strap and shortened it, which makes me very happy now because the bag hangs right under my armpit and when in falls from the shoulder I can still carry it on the arm without worries that it will drag on the floor. But the best idea ever was to sew on the bag these beautiful turquoise flowers, cut from an old leather wallet, for a bit of whimsy.

I traced them with a cookie cutter and cut them to shape, then I sewed the flowers to the bag by hand. And this is how now I have the perfect bag. No doubt about it.

Well, doubts will arise, no doubt, after a while. But until then, I can declare myself bag-happy.

What can I say? It is summer and I am going through some lightly depressive episodes. Somehow sewing helps. What happened to my wardrobe simplicity quest you ask? It is just not a focus at the moment. Besides, my sewing is less about the desire to own these things as it is about the whole process of imagining and making them. Also, the first one is  from a thrifted fabric (bought for $1 enough fabric to make four of these blouses) and the third one is from a linen curtain that I had replaced.

I look at these blouses and I find it bewildering that they used to be large pieces of flat, unravelling fabric. I am always in awe of the act of making things, of creating, so specific to our species. The search for beauty and the dedication to bring it together from scraps, pieces of no significance of their own.

Immediate and concrete, sewing lets my mind wonder and my hands work, which seems to be something that I am in very much need of. Interestingly enough, I am reading right now “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron and here is what she has to say on this:

P.S. In that first image, the painting ( girl in a bottle) is done by my dear friend Rachel Fenton, of Snow Like Thought. I admired an image of it on her blog and she sent it to me! Isn’t it beautiful?

Sewing has made quite a come back in my life lately. I have been sewing like crazy for me, the ballerina-rock star and other little friends. My creativity needs get complete satisfaction from sewing.

I was thinking of childhood games and how they tell of what we have a gift for. As a child in my grandparents village, I remember, I had a little table and a chair that my grandfather had built for me. He would put them out, in the shade of the grape vines. Over there I would work each day on my perfumery of bottles filled with water and flower petals from my grandmother’s summer garden and on making clothes for my little Barbie-style doll. I used to gather all the scraps of fabric I could find to make that doll pants and dresses. It is a memory I had long forgotten–the skinny little doll with a bad haircut, which I had given her on an uninspired day, and all her handmade clothes.

The perfumery passion didn’t turn out into anything later (except that yeah, the love for little bottles and the fragrances within always stayed with me) and I never really picked up sewing again until a few years ago. Now it looks like it’s again becoming a passion. A source of happiness. Why buy a new blouse in the store, as beautiful and cheap as it might be, when the rush just goes away in a short while and the blouse turns quickly back into only a thing, at the back of the closet? I can make that into weeks of planning for the right fabric, making trips to the fabric store, finding the perfect pattern, and cutting, sewing, taking it apart again, cutting, sewing on stolen short moments, for days and days. Letting my mind float and dream many dreams. Until it is finally done. The perfect blouse, uniquely mine, reminding me every time I wear it of the beautiful, peaceful hours of work and excitement that went into it.

And now, after seeing my little sewn things, you can go and take at look at the most amazing clothes that I (maybe you too) have seen in a long time: Handmade Annyschoo on Etsy. I just discovered this shop yesterday and I have been fascinated. I would happily fill my closet with her stuff and not wear anything else ever. In comparison, my sewing creations seem so insignificant (and how much this reminds me of how I feel about my writing!). I wish I could make clothes like that, but, oh, well, I guess I have to stay happy with my simple peasant blouses. They are so cute and comfortable, you know? They bring whispers of childhood and freedom, of a small Romanian village on the banks of Siret river. And they are my creation. That should be enough. For now.