A MONTH IN SCOTLAND, A YEAR IN ISOLATION - Looking Back, Looking Forward - Sewing Will Carry Me Through
Wearing a dress made out of a vintage bed sheet using a vintage pattern, standing in front of my stash, and my quilted jacket, sewn with scraps from previous projects. Both garments made during 2020 Stay at Home orders.
A year ago today, I taught a class on repeating textile design to about 15 students in Manhattan. Afterwards, I walked to the Garment District - like a moth to the flame - for some fabric shopping. My favorite shop keepers were agitated: wearing latex gloves (masks were not yet a thing), and saying they had heard scary news. They weren’t sure if this new virus was on their fabric, on their mail. Nervous, I took the ferry home to avoid the claustrophobic subway. At home, Jason informed me that one of his colleagues had been exposed to someone who tested positive for Covid. As a (at the time extreme seeming) safety precaution, his office had gone completely work-from-home. I remember thinking, it could be two or three months inside this apartment, as if that was a long time. We were all so naive.
It has now been one year of Covid, and just over a month since we moved to Glasgow, Scotland. We did a 10 day hotel quarantine upon arrival in the UK, which was acutely boring, but I felt I had been training for it: I had knitting, a yoga mat, and zero guilt about too much screen time. Now we have moved to a beautiful, spacious flat, with almost no furniture, and absolutely nowhere to go (Stage 4 Lockdown is quite limiting).
You know what will rock your world? Having the same, mundane day over and over for 10 months, and then moving to another country, where you will be asked to have a different kind of same, mundane day. But all your creature comforts have been removed and the rules around the pandemic are different. I’ll be honest: I’ve hit a wall. I am tired, I cry too easily.
Where I spent a lot of time in 2020.
Sewing pulled me through 2020. Fabric and patterns, pressing and tissue, on repeat, everyday, forced me out of bed in the morning, because I cannot stand an unfinished project. I sewed myself everything from plain black pants to a hand sequined nightgown. I made a needlepoint hand bag and a stuffed dog that holds unworn pajamas! (Wow, no blog posts on those? I will remedy that stat.) Every single item I sewed in 2020 is a treasure: evidence that I could keep my hands busy and my mind engaged during a time we were all forced to stay home, and when my freelance work ground to a halt, only to ever return as a weak trickle.
My newest version of True Bias’ Lander Pants: I tweak the pattern almost every time I sew it. Here I have made the seam allowances 5/8” so I can flat fell the seams, and I’ve adjusted the center front to sit lower than the original draft.
Currently, I can’t quite bring myself to sew. After a few years of having a designated sewing space, I can’t be bothered to drag my machine to the kitchen table, only to shuffle it to the side when it’s time for a meal. But I don’t think our sea shipment (containing our furniture, clothes, and “household goods”) will arrive for another 3-4 weeks, so I’m gonna have to get over it. I never pre-plan my projects, but that’s all I have to work with right now, so I just have to embrace it.
My sewing room needs a lot of work! The “low” part of the ceiling is about 6’ tall, the full height ceiling is around 13’ tall. There is a lofted area that I haven’t figured out how to use yet.
I know sewing will return to me because I think about it constantly. I’ve dreamed up several possible layouts for my new sewing room. I ordered some gorgeous fabrics from London, and felt the familiar rush of excitement and possibility as I ripped open the package - I cannot wait to pair my new fabrics with vintage patterns from my collection! I traced a pattern from Burda magazine (don’t have the right fabric on hand), and last night I made a few fitting adjustments to my Lander Pants tissue…. maybe I’ll force myself to cut the fabric today.
My new cotton lawn fabrics from Storrs London - I purchased the yellow and black prints, they sent me the pink one as a gift.
I’m pretty confident sewing will pull me through 2021, too, but once you’ve lost momentum, it takes work to get it back. And right now that is true for me with sewing, and with everything else, too. Playing with fabric and pattern tissue always gets the wheels turning for me, and I just need to allow myself to take a little longer this time. This year holds so many unknowns: Will I work? Will I make friends? Will I build a satisfying life here? I don’t have the answers, but I am determined to land on my feet. Thinking about the big picture overwhelms me, but taking small, measurable actions soothes my soul. So that’s the plan.
Whenever people ask me how I approach a complicated sewing project I remind them, every project, big or small, has to be made one seam at a time. Today I want to take my own advice, to break everything down to the smallest steps, knowing that eventually something bigger will come of it. XO, Martha