The Bubble Of Yes

Cleaning house is one of those tasks where your mind can wander while your hands do what they already know how to do - which is excellent - and gave me plenty of time to think on Friday. I ended the morning with a shiny house AND some answers.

About ten years ago, I took two woodworking courses at the university. Even though I had absolutely no idea how to work with wood, I felt that bubble of yes at the very first lesson and made the box above with hand cut, dovetail joints. In the end, I decided not to work in wood simply because it would divide my time, money, and energy and would require the use of a space that is currently my husband's. Woodworking has many similarities to fashion sewing and I know I could have done well at it and even so made a conscious choice to move in another direction.

Currently, there are about a dozen canvasses in varying sizes stacked in the closet. They were originally bought to attach textile art pieces to and are still in storage because the idea of painting canvasses to decorate my home is a thought that tickles. I painted the 8" x 11" piece above in a workshop a few years ago. Its similarities to my textile work are intriguing and while I have no formal how-to-paint training, I have an understanding of the elements and principals of design, I am comfortable with my abstract, contemporary, and highly textured style, I have confidence that if I played with it long enough I'd understand the medium, and there's that bubble of yes - an absolutely key ingredient that lets me know that abstract painting is a direction I could go in when and if painting gets to the top of the list.

In 1989, I took a fabric dyeing workshop, felt the bubble, immediately bought all the supplies and then - strangely - put them on a shelf and ignored them. Even though I understood color and the potential of creating your own fabrics, I was not in the right space for that journey. It wasn't until almost twenty years later when I'd become a process versus a product person - read a lot less of a perfectionist - that I actually started comfortably dyeing fabric and now I can dye an exact color if I want to and I rarely need to. Mostly, I dye the fabric first and use it later and that works for me. 

I wish I could give each and every sewist a TNT pattern for a top, a blouse, a dress, a skirt, and a pair of pants. This pattern would be well-fitted, wearability tested, muslined, and ready to be sewn in different fabrications. Then you would know the joy of taking said pattern, laying it down on a piece of fabric and just sewing it up! You would know and understand the sense of accomplishment that comes from making two skirts or two tops in a weekend and adding them to your wardrobe rotation! And the beauty of a Tried and True (TNT) Pattern is that once you've worked out your fitting issues, you can use this basic pattern to create any look you want! - Carolyn, Diary of a Sewing Fanatic, January 28, 2009

About twelve or fifteen years ago, I bought Pattern Master Boutique, a software for developing your own patterns. There are a lot of variables to the software that the average - not highly computerized - person wouldn't expect and the chat group - as helpful as it was - was full of conflicting opinions and the help line was often worse. It took me a good ten years to figure out that software. I'd use it and abandon it and return to it because of that bubble. I knew there was something there for me to persevere with and I did. In the end, I paid a seamstress to fit me using Butterick's fitting shell pattern, transferred the adjustments to the tissue pattern, measured it, and learned how to manipulate the software to produce the tissue pattern, and then used that pattern to adjust commercial patterns or to explore design.  It worked and even though I've since concluded that I took the long route thinking it'd be a shortcut, it's a huge accomplishment.

Developing a TNT would have been more direct. A TNT pattern is like combining a blank canvas with a confident paint stroke. When I'm working on a TNT pattern, I have that bubble of yes even though they are basic and can be boring to develop. When I ran across Carolyn's posting above on Thursday night, it reminded my why I love TNT patterns and their endless possibilities. Carolyn is a master of TNT patterns. Her examples are inspirational and encouraging - which is good - because developing a TNT is tedious and labour intensive with lots of duds and failures along the way and so worth it.

This is not the same as not caring about oneself, but rather about focusing on the myriad aspects of being human that have nothing to do with how we assemble an outfit. Personally, I think we can learn more from, say, frumpy Eleanor Roosevelt than the "fabulous older ladies" portrayed at Advanced Style. Perhaps there's inspiration to be found from both. Thoughts? - Peter, Male Pattern Boldness, January 5, 2012

IMHO some of the outfits that the women on Advanced Style wear look totally ridiculous - and would on anyone at any age - but there are others that I love. However - clothes aside - what I'm inspired by the most is the confidence of these women. The picture above is of Beatrix Ost at 71. She looks sure of herself and like she's having fun. As I age, I am increasingly confident, less influenced by what others think, and less willing to waste my time on what isn't working. I'm more interested in depth and quality of character than looks even though I definitely want to look my best and am totally fascinated by fashion and beauty.  I've always found that an interesting mix in my personality and another illustration of the need for balance.

While I do not want to be remembered as a fashion plate, neither do I want to live on in posterity as a frump and even though I'm more of a practical than a playful dresser, playing with fashion has that bubble of yes and it's that bubble that lets me know when I'm heading in the right direction even when the learning curve gets steep. It's an innate something inside each of us that we need to look for and listen to. When it's not there, this - whatever this may be - is not working.

ParisGrrl wrote - I hope you get the kinks worked out with the polymer, but when you first posted about making jewelry, I imagined you were going in the direction of fabric "status" necklaces. I could so see you doing those...

Although I'm not sure exactly what you mean by status necklace - and I'd love to know - THAT is exactly the thought that occurred to me while cleaning. The bubble of yes is around creating textile jewelery. I'd lost track of the original question which was to find some thing that could be used as a base to attach the textile pendant to giving it weight and presence. My goal was to explore being a textile jewelry artist and not to become an artist in another medium. By returning to the original question, I realized I'd wandered and needed to get back on the path.

BUT... what about all that polymer stuff you bought? By asking myself how can I use polymer I concluded that it's perfect for mixing specific colors to create co-ordinated large beads which are quite expensive to buy and not necessarily available in the colors I want and since I'm quite comfortable mixing colors, it works. The bead above is 1 1/4 inches. It's the one I made the other day and needs to be baked harder and sanded, buffed, and polished but it'll be perfect with this copper chain I bought on sale at Michaels on Sunday.

When I realized that polymer and I were not clicking, I went online to read the workshop list for ArtFest hoping to change one of my classes because its primary ingredient was polymer clay. Another class was about journals. The supply list called for canvas and gel medium, a combo that clicked. I called my friend who is a painter and asked her questions about stiffening canvas with gel and that set me off in another direction, talking to another friend, who suggested the craft foam that she uses to shape textile vessels and my mind is hopping and I need to experiment and I'm back on track and the potential is there. It's all good.

Most of this posting was written on Friday afternoon which was a good thing because when I woke up on Saturday morning, I couldn't raise my right arm up and forward - the motion used for blow drying your hair, putting on make-up, and getting into a t-shirt. That was painful and not fun, especially as I'd intended to sew a t-shirt and create a pendant over the weekend. It didn't happen. Mostly, I rested, read, did a little knitting, and thought and one thing I decided was not to share every up and down of this current journey. Instead, I'll post a highlight now and then and a finished piece when I have something to show. I hope you understand and, even if you don't, this decision feels right because I'd already started to feel the pressure to produce and that's not a good thing.

More than anything, I want to play and see where the journey takes me because it is - to repeat myself - so important to know yourself and to pay attention to your inner intuition so that you can walk in YOUR direction and make corrections when you get off track. When we learn to know and trust ourselves, to listen to our inner artist, we can tell when something is working and when it's not and we recognize when to dig in and figure things out and when to move on. For me, part of that knowing is the bubble of yes. I hope you have your own bubble. It's a wonderful thing.

Talk soon - Myrna


Grateful - four calls thanking me for handbags that were much loved and appreciated. I was amazed the mail was that quick.

P.S. I can lift my arm now with only slight twinges although the pain seems to have moved to my neck instead which may mean a visit to the chiropractor if it doesn't settle soon but is WAY less debilitating.

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Personal Growth - Mistakes are the portals of discovery - James Joyce

There is often more than one right answer. Learning that truth was a huge and significant growth factor for me. I grew up in a world with one right answer and when that's what you believe and you don't know what the answer is, you tend to hide and play it safe so you won't be wrong because to be wrong is to be rejected and we have such a strong need for acceptance. Along with liking myself more and becoming increasingly less influenced by other's opinions, I've learned how to be wrong and this is good. It has made me a better person and a better artist.