Grey Refashion

Baby holding at the dentist went wonderfully. She sat and looked at the fish tank for the first half hour, was held and rocked for the next half hour, and slept through the one after that and even through coffee afterward. I enjoyed the warm snuggles. LOL - I'm going to have to tone up my baby holding muscles whenever I hear that I'm expecting a grandchild. My arms could tell it had been a few years.

When I got home, it was either start on the file cleaning and most likely get sucked into that for the rest of the day or start on the sweater refashion and most likely get sucked into that for the rest of the day. I chose the sweater. What fun. Here are some pictures. Hopefully, I'll have the finished ones tomorrow. All it needs is a closure. There were some metal ones at Fabricland I want to look at.




Bunny wrote: I see this all quite differently. Your friend told you no, she didn't have the time. I think her saying no is just fine...

Oh definitely. I am all for saying no. In fact, I think the ability to say no is one the greatest skills a woman can learn. My friend's no didn't bother me at all. What bothered me was the negative questioning and the I'm a Mom, I don't have that option comment that felt critical as opposed to a discussion of preferences or differing customs however, I do know she didn't mean it to be critical. That's not her nature.

If I'm honest, the past probably factored into my reaction as well. Over the years, I have received a lot of criticism for simplifying and for saying no and yet we send cards, bake goodies, decorate the house and tree, exchange presents, have special meals, and spend a lot of time together. It's just scaled down to be less stressful. I've been surprised by how many women (and men) feel they don't have that option. They do.

AND... I should have been more general in my comments. I didn't mean for the discussion to be about who was right. My friend's priorities are correct. Her focus is her family and friends. I just feel that she, like many women, isn't stopping to think through what her actions might really be saying. That lack of awareness is not uncommon and THAT is what I wanted to say. If you're running around in circles, frazzled and not enjoying the season, stop, think, question, decide, and act instead of react. Make Christmas what you want it to be not what you think it has to be.

That was my experience. First, I was blissfully ignorant and then it occurred to me that while my priorities were correct, my methods needed revising. After years of behaving one way, it suddenly made no sense to run myself ragged prepping for one 24 hour day that I was then too exhausted to enjoy. If I would just do things differently, I could have thirty-one days of memory making. MUCH better.




I thought I understood how to create. I've read every book on the subject. I've dabbled in every medium I could find but always came back to quilting. Your class has taught me more about creativity than anything else ever has. You put it so simply and then emphasized and encouraged. Beautiful. I got it!

The quote above is from Nancy, one of my Self Expressions students. She was talking about the method I taught in the class of picking a starting point and step by step responding to the developing piece until it was finished. It's a way of working that, when I developed it, completely changed how I create. It's the method I'm using for this refashion. I started by opening up the grey sweater and then used my T & T pattern to get the shape of the shoulders and armholes correct. In the picture above, that section sticking up at the right is how much too wide the back of the sweater was after maintaining the side seams.




It was formed into the wide pleat you see in this image. The stitching line ends about even with the notches on the armhole.

Even though the original sweater had a dropped shoulder, because it was an extra-large man's sweater there was enough room in the sleeves to cut my smaller ones.




First, I sewed long sleeves but later cut them off to three quarter length. The long ones looked frumpy and just plain wrong with how the front was developing. I'd hoped to use the ribbing from the collar to make cuffs only half the collar equalled too tight a band for my arm so I used a 1" hem instead. The hem along the bottom is the original sweater hem. That worked out perfect.

When I showed Howard my sweater in progress last night, he said that he liked it and that it looked familiar somehow. That made me laugh. Yes, I said, imagine it bigger and longer and your size and now it's my size. He didn't have a problem with that. Apparently it looks better on me. Good thing - LOL.

This morning, I'm out for a Christmas breakfast with Sharon and then she's coming over to sew on her latest bra. I'm not sure what I'm working on yet.

Talk soon - Myrna

Grateful - fun refashioning and great discussions