Fabric Fast - The Home Stretch.

I did a little fabric swap with a friend of mine recently. She needed 4 yds of my solid bone fabric, and offered in return, a little fabric shopping online where she was putting in an order. Fabric shopping you say? I didn't look twice at my solid cotton in bone.

I have let myself look online a few times this year. I've even let myself put some things in a cart. And then I've closed my laptop. There's been times where all I felt like was some online shopping therapy, some seeing what's out there. And I'm glad to say I haven't folded. It's always actually renewed my resolved to keep my year long fast.

I opened up the fabric store site and started clicking things into my cart. I always use my cart as a wishlist first, and then start to cull. I started with the sale section and was glad to see Shelbourne Falls by Denyse Schmidt and some Sarah Jane and even some Hand Drawn Garden by Anna Maria. Note to self: if you wait, it will always go on special. I went looking for some text prints, some other basics...and soon I had about 20 yards in my cart. Well that was fun! Now to narrow it down to four.

I started with the easy ones. The "I'm only buying this because it's $5/yd" prints. Now I had about 15yds. Starting with the reminder that the end of the year would come around quick enough, I asked myself what I actually really like. I could have asked myself, "What will I use?" which also would have been a helpful way of narrowing it down. A simple dot print is one I usually pass up for something more elaborate, but always end up finishing first. But hey. I was shopping for fabric for the first time in months. What would I like? Here's what I chose:



The blue egg print for a quilt back I have planned and the rest just for fun. The text prints got shelved, along with the dots. There's always next year for those.
And what did I learn? (because there's always a lesson in experiences like this!)

- The whole psychology of sales totally works on me. It takes a bit of convincing to let go of something for $5 that I would never buy for 10.
- Because of this, I don't always take the time to really look at prints to decide if I like them or not. I am influenced by value, popularity, scarcity.
- Designs that I couldn't believe I was missing out on when they first came out this year, have faded in their desirability.
- When I have to choose only one or two prints, rather than get a whole bundle of a line, I become much more critical/aware of what I actually like. 

 

I've kind of been imagining this massive shopping spree in the new year. To have that delicious feeling again of ordering, waiting, arriving, washing, folding, putting away. The expense justified by all that money I've saved. But this little tiny shopping experience showed me that if I started the year that way, well, I haven't really learned anything from this fast. I just took a break, without actually changing my shopping habits. I did want them to change, for the sake of simplicity, but also to learn what I really loved and used. I will still enjoy that new year shopping spree (only 11 weeks away!!), but hopefully with eyes open to what's really me.

And these other fabric photos? They are my current stash. I was hoping I would get to October and I'd have to pull out some serious creativity to keep making with what's left of my meagre collection. But no. This could keep me going another year. And I'm not saying that out of shame for how much I have, but surprise at how far it goes! Turns out a small bookshelf of yardage and about 200 dresses worth of scraps can make a heck of a lot of quilts.

a new list

I started feeling my morning sickness fade early last week (Woohoo!), a few days out from the Olive Tree Market. I was SO thankful! And so, in the waiting room for my antenatal appointment, I started to write an excited list of what I wanted to get done before the big day. I have so many ideas of things I could make for great Christmas gifts. And most of the things I have for sale aren't in that easy "hand over your money" price bracket. And ladies wrap skirts! They sold so well in my shop earlier in the year. And people have been asking if make cushions. And kids bags! They'd make great little gifts and my kids love them...

"Jodi Godfrey?"

I put my pen down, slowed down my brain and went into my appointment. I answered all the usual questions and waited while the poor older midwife sloooowly typed everything into the computer. I looked at the breastfeeding posters on the walls that I recognised from the '90s when my mum was a midwife in the town where I grew up. I felt slightly uncomfortable with her calling me "Lovey." Then she pointed me over to the bed so she could find the baby's heartbeat. It was the day before our little one we lost earlier in the year would have been due. I stopped breathing so I could listen. After a few movements of the device, she found it, fast and strong, and moved away far too quickly.
We talked for a few moments longer and then she let me go.

I felt silly but the first thing to cross my mind when I heard that heartbeat was, "Oh, that's right! I'm having a baby!" Like it had only taken me 3 days without nausea to forget.

 On the bus ride home, I took out my list again. And I decided I needed to change the question from, "What would sell well?" to, "If you have only 6 months of sewing time before the 'wonderful chaos' descends, what would you like to make?" And as much as I'd love to be (or felt like I should be) one of those women so committed to their business, that the first answer they think of is kids' bags and pillows, my answers were very different.

I want to finish the quilt for our bed.
I want to make gifts for friends in our community who will graduate and leave at the end of the year.
I want to make some things for baby.
I want (Tim) to make new sofas (yes, you heard right!).
I want to replace the soft furnishings (curtains and bedding) we were given when we moved in, to make do, with colours that are really me.
And I really, really want to finish my Penny Sampler (which will also fulfil the goal of learning to paper-piece).

So instead of heading home and pulling out my novelty fabric, I went for my box set aside for my favourite Anna Maria Horner prints, which I'd started cutting into strips for these log cabins for our bed. I had this little hope that I could finish the quilt top to display at the market stall, but you know me. That was a tad unrealistic. Tim did however, give me that whole Friday, the day our baby had been due, to hide in the sewing room and play with colour. And I had time to think, to be thankful for this new heart inside me, for this new energy I'd been feeling, and of course, to be sad as well.

And then when I didn't meet my goal, I came up with the idea of displaying all my works in progress on this sheet behind my stall. And I think it looked even better than what I originally had in mind! And even though I still didn't have affordable knick knacks to sell, I did have wonderful conversations with lots of people about my quilts and blocks. It feels like getting a chance to have a little exhibition once a month in the sunshine!

So what about you? If you had six months left to sew, what would you make?

Time for Tea

I have finished something! Hurray!
After my last post about coming to terms with my possible long term state of morning sickness, I sat down and thought about some radical changes to routine. If my capacity for all the things in my day had shrunk from about 8-10 good hours to about four, I needed to think creatively. And I needed to prioritise.

The best solution I could come up with was making time to sew in the morning, when I was at my best. It's usually the time I spend doing housework and playing with the kids. And then I would sew during rest time and after they were in bed, my little reward, my break from the world. I felt really uncomfortable making sewing time during my 'work hours'. It was hard enough not to drown in the laundry as it is without trying to squeeze in sewing too. So I just sat with the idea for while, waiting to see if a better plan arose.

Well then both my kids got sick and most of you know how that throws any kind of routine straight out the window. Friday night I finally got to sleep at 5am, and we spent the weekend basically in survival mode. I'm so thankful for a friend that cooked enough food to feed us three nights in a row!
I'm also so thankful for Tim. He decided to take Monday off work and stayed home to attack the washing with me, take the kids out for a drive, and give me time to sew.
I managed to finish off this custom order tablecloth.

 And having a finish is a great feeling anyway, but while I sat there matching colours, feeding them slowly through my machine, (I was using an overlocking stitch on my sewing machine - great motivation to learn to use my overlocker!) I started to feel an energy and peace I couldn't get from a full night's sleep. And it started to help me feel differently about the way we shape this next season.

I was reminded again that serving my family isn't just making sure the washing is up to date and food is on the table, and it isn't even just making myself available to them, but it's feeding my own soul too. I'd let go of all the things that give me energy to make time for the bare essentials. And I was feeling bare.

And do you know what I've realised (but kind of always known)? My kids play really well together in the morning! They haven't even noticed me tucked away in the studio for an hour. It's the afternoons when they become twitchy, and need to know I'm there, need me to feed and water them more regularly. So I park myself on the back steps while they play outside, ready with fruit and water when they come asking. Maybe this will work longer than just while I'm pregnant?

Oh, and a few notes about the tablecloth. I used mostly fabrics from Notting Hill by Joel Dewberry and Cameo by Amy Butler. Don't they work well together? My customer requested a large style patchwork in bright colours so I had to be choosy about prints that worked well in big cuts that I was happy to let go. Though I do only have three months left in my Fabric Fast, can you believe it?! I used an overlocking stitch to piece them together and folded the edges over twice and used my 1/4" foot to hem them. These colours will be just perfect for Christmas, don't you think? Which has got me thinking that this is a reasonably quick gift to make compared to a quilt...