Garment 11: Opportunity

http://www.zoetrope.me/afterword/iammia-seamlessness-pilgrimage

First off, I will disclose that I had no part in the design or making of this lovely, so-light-it-could-almost-float-away raglan-sleeved top. That credit is all due to a talented friend, Zoe Welch: "slow fashion" creator, writer, photographer, movie-maker - amongst other gifts - and first-rate source of encouragement, whom I met through OSF.

It doesn't belong to me, either, though it's adorable and I think I could totally rock it. It is owned by another friend and fellow OSF board member, Kat Siddle, who bought it from Zoe one night when we were picking up a donation of fabric from her home.

So why are you looking at pictures of it, you're wondering? Enter Kat's teal winter coat. It's a really cute coat, with a really badly-behaved zipper. One evening Kat's beautiful Zoe top became so completely stuck in the zipper of her coat, that after a 2-hour struggle, she had to have her fiance finally cut her out of it. Aw man. Was it ruined forever? Hmm. That might require a little side-ways thinking. That's where I came in.

I love a good side-ways think, especially when it involves giving purpose to useless, potentially ruined stuff. The hole itself was nicely placed, and nicely shaped - kind of heart-like, I thought. I happened to have, sitting on my sewing table, the left-overs from a recently finished piece - scraps from a twice-abandoned cashmere sweater, pink and deliciously soft, which I had originally lifted from Zoe's Sally Ann donations bag. What's not to love about cashmere? Or pink. It seemed a fitting material for a heart-shaped patch.

The running stitches were done with yarns from those hopeful little packets that hang on better-quality new clothes and may contain one or more of the following: a spare button that will almost certainly never know a buttonhole, a neatly-coiled length of yarn with even less hope of ever darning a hole, a symbolic sprinkling of loose beads or sequins. In rare cases - and a sure sign of the purchaser's elevated taste level - one might find two metal or plastic collar stays: remedy for the even less likely event of that uncommon, though annoying, affliction: Unequal Collar Point Orientation.

I've been saving the packets since I can remember, and most "estate" donations at OSF contain an assortment of them. I expect most of us hang on to them out of obligation, at least until their original garment has passed from our lives, when we are finally released from the responsibility of keeping them around. But by then, they've found a semi-permanent - though never entirely satisfactory - home in the junk drawer, or, more likely, the button box, mixed in with a thimble or two, a couple of dome fasteners, a corroded penny, and a few random nuts or screws, quietly living out their tasteful, but pointless existence. It was very, very satisfying to put some of them to use.

I usually bring along with me a bag of hand sewing (or un-sewing, more often than not!) whenever I have to ride the bus, wait for the doctor, sit through the kids' extra-curricular activities, or spend more than 20 minutes in a passenger seat. Two neuroplasticity sessions later, and voila! Survey says, definitely not ruined!

Considering the higher quality of garments that generally merit spare parts hang tags, I suspect the yarns used for the stitching are likely mostly real wool. I'm hoping the patch might felt up a little with washing, in a jaunty smocking-esque sort of way. We shall see.

Enquiries at enoughstuffblog@gmail.com

Photography by Jeff Minuk www.lostinkits.com

Garment 10: Love

Love letter, or recycling gone too far?

Shortly after our son was born my husband declared, "I love him so much I would suck the snot out of his nose. If I had to." With our daughter it was, "Even her poop is not offensive." Now that's love.

Are those pockets, or are you just happy 
to see me?

When the elastic of 4 pairs of my husband's underwear finally, simultaneously, bit the dust, I joked he should save them - maybe I could make something out of them! It was a joke. Really. It was. But, before the end of the day, I had draped the front of this t-shirt, telling myself it was an excuse to play around with the neat, variegated thread I had acquired at Our Social Fabric . I mean, seriously! Who would want to wear something made out of my husband's ancient, discarded gonch? Well... I would! Yep. I love him that much.

Wearing my heart
as a sleeve?

The back is made from a piece of mesh cut three years ago for a rain pants project begun when our daughter started skating lessons. If she loved the ice half as much as I had done, she'd be spending an awful lot of time with wet legs and bottom. Some times my tights would be so wet that when I fell, my legs would freeze to the ice and would need to be hacked free with mittened karate chops.

I cut the rain pants size 7, plenty of time to grow in to them. She's now 8. For a long time the bundle of lavender Gore-tex and white mesh lining sat on my sewing table, ready to go. Then it was moved to a box of things to be sewn soon, but not quite yet. Later it found a spot in a closet of useful, but not currently needed, sewing gear. No matter where I moved it, I could hear it whispering to me between projects, haranguing, becoming progressively louder as it was ignored over time. It got a little aggressive near the end, which is how it comes to be the back of this top, even though not directly related to my husband's underwear.

And will I wear it? Guess that depends on if we can find a sitter on Valentine's Day.

Co-incidentally - and I hope this may redeem me - shortly after I made this little number, we received at OSF a personal donation that included 4 pairs of someone else's husband's used underwear! (We never know just what we'll find in those boxes and bags! That's part of the fun.) I admit I was tempted ever-so-briefly (get it?), but NO! Ultimately I could not do it! Guess I'm just a one-man woman.

Size S-M. Taken. By me, of course! Who else would want to wear my husband's old, discarded gonch? Gross.

Enquiries at enoughstuffblog@gmail.com 

Photography by Jeff Minuk  www.lostinkits.com