One corner of our flat (and only one corner... to please my Christmas hating Boyfriend) has officially been given up to the season. And on the tree are two new decorations for this year. I do have a certain number of filler baubles but eventually I want each one to be one of a kind. I'm not going to demand a story from each one (although most have one) but I at least one them to be incredibly pretty. This year they are hearts made from fabric and ribbon scraps. Memories of unemployment I guess.
Okay, so I haven't yet finished the cushion covers for the living room. Or arranged a new (matching!) set of bed linen. I haven't made a toilet paper cosy, a pot holder or sewn up the hole in my pocket.
But I did make the most darling cushion cover... for the balcony... in October. No, I can't remember the last time I was accused of being practical either.
The fabrics are a mix of my leftovers, off cuts priced for pennies at the local fabric shop and, for the middle right, a vintage floral.
I'm busy getting ready to fund raise for Edinburgh tonight and I'm planning four weeks of discussing important world issues with girls age 7-9.
More on those when they have happened. All I have for you now is some hand stitched flowers out of leftover materials that I'm hoping to get a few pennies for later.
Did you notice? Officially Britishly at least we just had the last weekend of summer. We spent Sunday at the beach, arriving when the tide was going out. We had a dip, Stephen dammed a river, I read a bit, we ate lunch, we ate doughnuts. We explored the low tide. There was more swimming, ice cream and slushes.
And that was the end of another summer. Also I got decent shots of the dress I wore to the wedding.Shots that don't involve me stood in a badly lit pub. Hope this gives a better idea. If not, at least I've got my hair down.
For some reason that will go unmentioned, but from recent posts you can probably guess, I’ve been thinking of my own thin privilege lately.
When I found fat acceptance I was coming at it from the perspective of someone who thought them self fat. I’m not. I’m thin. But I’ve only come to realise I was thin recently.
Why? Well yes, I lost inches around the waist as a result of pasty deprivation but - I admit now – I was thin before that.
Probably my mental issues come into play here, making me cringe with disgust as my big flabby stomach brushed against the sheets in bed. Or how I screamed thinking of my fat cheeks turning inward to suffocate me.
Reading that back it scares me. How the hell did my body image get so far off of what I am: an average sized, average height woman who always manages to find something off the rack even if my boobs make me an inbetweenie.
And yes, some off that is anxiety and depression. I imagine I have some undiagnosed body issues thrown in. Some of it is, of course, growing up with a family that commented on my chicken legs. And I think that is why thin privilege can be so hard to grasp. Because it’s easy enough to think thin people have it easy but not so easy to say ‘like me’
I have had it easier being thin. To choose just one example when I joined the University Health Centre in my first year I had to have a physical. The guy doing it did my BMI and found me solidly (as usual) in the middle.
He asked me if I did any exercise. “No, not really. But I do walk everywhere.” He told me that it wasn’t a problem but I may want to think about joining the gym if I put on weight like a lot of people do in first year.
Yeah, spot the logic there.
So from realising I was thin I could realise my thin privilege, but how did I come to realise I was thin? It ties in with something I’ve wanted to talk about for a while. How my barely updated craft blog got political.
You see it’s hard for me to separate one from the other. Just like how we occasionally bring up the politics of food on Always Autumn politics is entwined with the way I craft.
If I where to post about how I wasn’t doing any projects or – more accurately – how I didn’t feel I had done anything good enough to post I couldn’t do that without talking about depression.
Cutting the cloth for a dress makes me think about my body. I measure it constantly, evaluating a clothing project means talking about my boobs or my hip size. And so often when I post ‘my big boobs’ so on or ‘I’ve lost weight so I’ve taken this in’ I feel like apologising for having at least some ideal (so called, although not in the sense that it causes me problems with altering in the first place!) parts of my body.
Crafting lends itself to discussion of body image, to my mental state. It makes me think about feminism and the treatment of the mentally ill. When I want to write about crafting with Guides it’s often linked up with thoughts about how young people don’t have a realistic voice.
Quite frankly if I tried to separate the political from the personal I’d never bloody post. And -of course - I didn't.
"Boyfriend, will you take a picture of me in my new top?"
"Sure just sit next to the new backup server."
So this is me in my new top, sat next to the new backup server.
The pattern is Simplicity 3750, which is rather cool. I used view E. The other variations give cute puff sleeves, big bell sleeves, breezy cap sleeves and a tunic length. It's a wonderful pattern, with it's elastic and gathering on the bust, that can go from casual to decadent depending on the fabric.
I went for Minnie Mouse personally. I took out the sash, lengthening the bottom front. Next time remind me to drop the top front down two inches, cut the length of the elastic shorter by another one and clip the armholes shorter by a half.
It's easy to be cynical isn't it? But watching my cousin Chris get married this weekend was a good cure.
They are young, that is younger than me, so watching them get married was a little scary. But they are very family orientated - they are family Sims - and they are lucky enough to have found each other while they are young. And if anyone wants to begrudge them that they can come through me.
They were married in the presence of a great deal of loving family and friends including their young son Luke. He is incredibly well behaved and good natured. He has to be, I don't think he's had a second to himself since he was born. I'm sure the pictures of them all together will be treasured for a long time.
And, with a little bit of luck and a lot of love, so will the marriage. I wish them all the best.
But enough about other people, on to me. Not really, but I did make a dress to wear to the wedding. The top half is a grey butterfly design (last seen here) which didn't come out too well on the pictures, and the bottom is a purple cotton. I'm afraid by the time the picture was taken I was rather sweaty and creased. Still I like the dress.
I used New Look 6457 (view A). Turned out the bodice was huge. It was massive even for my industrial sized boobs. To make it again I'd cut the front panel two sizes smaller and the side and back one size smaller. But as I didn't have that much time I added some ruching on the bust.
I'm attempting to keep our laundry sweet smelling with the dried flowers of a rescued lavender.
It took me the entire length of an episode of Gilmore Girls to sew this together so it isn't incredibly impressive. Two circles of leftover fat quarter, decorated with spare buttons whip stitched together with the occasional seed bead.
It smells lovely, too bad its new home is the linen draw.
There is something scary about the fact that I moved here without my fabric stash and yet I’ve managed to build up a big enough one to think that I want to make a handbag in bed one morning and have it done without leaving the house.
I made this on Sunday out of the fabric leftover from the ruffles on the reconstructed skirt, the black fabric in the flower is from the trousers cut up to make it as well. That trim I bought on the card at Totnes and the button is from deep in the stash.
The bag fits the book(s) that I carry about with me and the length of the straps means that it dangles above my bum without me having to worry.
I was once one of those people who would never quilt. Never. It's too hard. But then when you leave the wool/bead/fabric Mecca that is the border country of the South Pennines you take what fate throws at you.
Fate threw Sewing the Seeds a patchwork shop. There I've never been mocked for spending too little, or too much and I've been offered hot chocolate. My visits have turned weekly. From there I bought this Monkey Buttons pattern, two fat quarters and a metre and set out to sew the bag.
Of course I'd never quilted before...
Intentionally though I did leave out the zip. All in all I'm rather pleased with myself and the bag. Especially with the colours. It's a very Autumn bag even if, on it's début, the weather was so nice I got to lie on the grass and read until I was almost asleep. That's why this is my favourite season.
I knew when I put this outfit together that it was a bit odd. For some reason I elected to look a little odd. Throwing together my black shirt which I use to look smart, the shrug/booby holder I use to look a bit more bohemian and a skirt I just reconstructed to look a bit industrial/Bet Lynch/punk is not the most sane idea I’ve ever had.But them I don’t think the skirt was a sane idea either. At work I dropped some bleach on my trousers, my first insane move. Then I thought I’d convert them into a skirt to save money. Which involved putting on leopard print ruffles so I had to go out and buy leopard print fabric. At £6 for one meter, to save money.
No it doesn’t make sense but it’s a lovely skirt. Photos by Stephen in Armada Park.
I tend to start projects and not end them. I have UFOs, but I also have a wardrobe. Everything in my wardrobe is unfinished. One day I can decide it needs a new embellishment, a repair or throwing into the scrap bag for future use. This skirt started life as a roll of fabric some 9 months ago. It was actually leftover from another – unsuccessful - project. The pattern was from Yeah I Made It Myself
Then I decided that it could do with a few funky roses on the bottom broke out the patterns (from Sublime Stitching
Crafts are addictive. Before internet shopping came into my life I had two big addictions, knitting and making jewellery.
Jewelery supplies where mainly bought from The Bead Shop in Manchester. The necklace is the result of my last visit.
Only that's a train ride away, a train ride I make less and less often. So I stopped. But now. But now I can buy bead in Huddersfield. And I have. And so the gloomy earrings were born.
The red bracelet is product of some recycling.
Speaking of recycling. The box is where I'm keeping little bags of seed beads. It was going to have a green heart but I didn't have any green glitter. So I used some red. So instead of being the 'I'm super madly envious' box it's the little box of (slightly morbid) hope. Or something.
The ribbon headband is an adorable project from the craftster book. I have a second one made up for Louise.
When I was walking in the Irwell I realized that I didn't have a picture of my top. It's Simplicity 3835 which is a Built by Wendy creation. There's more embroidery too, a cupcake.
