The good fabric
and why we fight the silk lining
Do you do this too?
Open a website (oh, I wish it were a real wood and glass door, but alas Northern Michigan has zero fashion fabric stores) and do a quick search for the thing that you want, find one that makes you inhale sharply, and promptly decide “I should keep looking just in case there’s a better/cheaper/less silk option”.
Only to waste entirely too much time comparing and considering, breaking your brain with the possibilities, and going back to that first stretch silk in your favorite maroon color that caught your breath.
Maybe it’s magic, maybe it’s an instant connection, a resonance if you will, but I so often find that the first thing that I look at, the one that caught my eye from the get-go, is the one I truly want. Even after days of research and searching.
So why fight this!?
Sure, it could be that silk is a pretty spendy fabric, and there’s always the wee bit of the “should not’s” involved. But honestly, as a sewist who’s been making clothes for decades, and has a closet full, to the brim (it’s a smallish closet to be fair) of handmade clothes she loves to wear, I’d rather make a few choice garments out of delicious fabric than use fabric that doesn’t excite me.
Maybe it’s the fear of making a, gasp, mistake!?
And then there’s the guilt of knowing that I’m planning to use this glorious silk as a lining fabric. No one will see it, but me. (hmmm, let’s be real, I’ll be showing it to everyone!) And then when I walk through the feeling that that would be a travesty, I wonder why? Why am I not worthy of having a gorgeous silk that only I know about?
And there’s the crux, is it not? The shadow feeling that somehow I’m not worthy of this luxurious fabric. Because honestly, I love the idea of marrying a warm and cozy wool interlock with a stretch silk lining and letting that warm me on a cool, maybe breezy, but still a bit sunny, day.
The kind of day that ushers in the winter or perhaps bids it farewell. A day where I don’t need a long down parka, like I wished I had brought for my son’s soccer game last Sunday (32 degrees with a biting wind); a spring or fall day when it’s a bit too cool to go without. Or maybe an evening this summer, enjoying a nightcap on the deck, with the full moon in my hair and a nip in the northern night.
And why don’t I deserve the “good” fabric? Why can’t I seem to pull the trigger on the rich, handmade watercolor paints when they make my heart pitter-patter? It’s not really the cost of them, as a fairly frugal human, it would be simple enough to skip eating out once or twice and balance out the expense…perhaps it’s the idea that I might “waste” it.
In my hands, the watercolor might produce a terrible painting that becomes fire starter, the jacket might not turn out exactly as I’m picturing, or yikes, I might burn a hole in it while cuddled up in the Adirondack chairs around the campfire.
Maybe it’s the fast-fashion world we live in. The cheaper the better. With so very little regard for the act of making clothing, the cloth, the dyes and the hands involved. I’m currently reading I Capture the Castle and in it, the family inherits a departed Aunt’s clothing. And it’s a bit of a windfall for them. It’s hard to imagine, in this day and age, inheriting someone’s closet and feeling fortunate for the gift.
What a different time. And yet this jacket, the one I’m working on for the retreat in the fall, the one with the gorgeous silk lining, I’m going to put it in my will!
Ha, Ha, Ha! Just kidding, I’m going to joyfully wear the hell out of it and fully expect it to fall to pieces, happily so!
The truth is, there’s an elevation that comes from using good fabric, even imperfectly, and taking your time to add design details, getting the fit just so and trying something new.
It allows you to leap right over that limiting don’t-make-a-mistake mentality, and right into a deeper sense of artistry, or mastery. The boldness will reward you, every time.
It’s putting your ‘big girl panties’ on and showing up. After all, “whether you think you can or think you can’t – you’re right” (Henry Ford).
That’s exactly what we’re doing at the fall sewing retreat on Mackinac Island
Bring your big girl panties! (Early bird pricing closes today!)
It actually doesn’t even matter what we’re making, although it will be very cool, it’s the act of getting the fit down and allowing yourself to experiment and sample, to be a designer and a pattern maker.
Taking the process into your own hands and learning techniques that will elevate all your sewing. And holding both the elevation from using your version of good fabric and your precious time and freely using them, allowing the result to be either a fabulous finished garment or a splendid learning piece…at the same time. There's the freedom. And there's your worthiness.
To be clear, you don’t need to bring stretch silk and woolly interlock for your jacket; you bring whatever makes your heart pitter-patter. I only ask that you show up for yourself and step up to the challenge!
So, you know I’ve settled on the gorgeous silk and a bouncy wool interlock, and I know what design I am going to work on this week for a jacket sample, but you get to choose.
But not alone. We’ll meet online in September to talk fabric, and at the retreat you’ll have options for pockets, collars, hem lines, quilting, the cut of the garment…or that idea you’ve dreamed up that I never even considered. We’ll do that.
If you have any questions, please reach out!
Early bird pricing (saves you $150!) closes tonight.
In deep Kinship,
Tina
