What's On the Table

Finally, I'm back to the sewing table. It feels good now that things are rolling again. The last couple of weeks I just accepted that all I could do was night shift. My body seems to have accepted the changes, so finishing work has commenced on the suit. Today, one blouse done.

Mystery Stole Three

Despite night shift doldrums I got something done.

Soap box time people!

Put very simply, I make things. I make things with my hands, one at a time and no two things are alike. Labels for what I do and how that defines me vary from seamstress to craftsperson to artist. Making things is as essential to me as breathing, just something I do and have done since I was a child.

The part that gets me is that what I do and how I do it has little or no value in our society. Oh, people will pay lip service, however that comes to a screeching halt when I tell them that making their dream dress will take me a minimum of two weeks full time labour and explain the costs of supporting me for those two weeks.

Those same people who claim to ‘understand’ and ‘respect’ what I do are the first in to the end of season sales at the chain stores, later bragging about their $10 dress. That dress what made by someone, perhaps a minor, working in sub prime conditions for little of no pay in a county with lower ‘standards’. While those of us lucky enough to live in our society with higher standards crash our financial systems because we want more.

As a society we carry more debt that any before us and as much as we all talk about how this is unhealthy, it sure doesn’t seem to be going away. Even when we are paying next to nothing for the ‘stuff’ we buy.

Just for a second imagine that we had to pay for everything we own based on supporting the same standard of living for the ‘makers’ as we want to maintain for ourselves?

It's Raining

I do not have babies, I do not want babies. In fact I tend to avoid babies (nieces excepted of course!), so why the all encompassing fixation on cute baby hats? Come on, tell me this hat doesn't make you smile on even this rainy cool morning! It doesn't even have a future owner yet but I had to make it.

Strechy unnamed cotton from Lettuce Knit in Toronto. They are small skeins but I may be able to get a second baby hat out of what's left.

Psst... Violet. This sure would look good on the Daily Chum next week!

SLACKER! - Or What's on the Table

Yep, it is so summertime. I would rather do just about anything than work! This is what I SHOULD be doing.

This is going to be a fun 1900's suit when it's all done.

I'm baaacccckkkk!!!

Sorry bout the silence there all. Nothing personal. It's summer time so I have been running around lots, soaking up sun and fun and too many fish fries! I also had a couple of weeks of being pretty low energy, I finally have my chiro to thank for a quick diagnosis, I got some antibiotics and I'm almost back to my old self.

So what have I been sewing/knitting? The mystery stole 3 has taken over my world. I stay up late knitting it, drag it around with me. I'm loving the twist of it being assymetrical. I really am enjoying the process. I'm finding however that how I hold my needles doing lace is doing bad things to the tendons in my wrists. Looks like lace knitting cannot become a long term addiction. Oh well, I have lots of addictions already.

I'll leave you with a pic of Trevor, aka a miner in Heist. I haven't gotten any more recent pictures lately. Don't worry, this was dress rehearsal, everyone received a warning about shiney shoes.