The Big Bottom Bag

Yesterday, Shams posted an interview with Marcy Tilton. I think the questions asked would be great for all of us to answer, to really think about how and why we create and about the best way to support and encourage, nurture and enhance our creativity. For too many, being creative is a segmented part when it's best lived as the whole. Creativity can embrace every ounce of your being, every part of your life, and enrich all that it touches.

When I think of a pivotal moment in my creative life, it was when I learned to be flexible, to stay with the project and allow it to morph and evolve and become whatever it wanted to become as opposed to what I thought to make it. It's when the switch between being product oriented and being processed oriented began. It's when I started to explore topics at a much deeper level and to push the boundaries, risk imperfection, embrace wadders, find success in failure, and to function without knowing. It's when I started to love learning from a perspective of ignorance rather than one of intelligence. Before that life was very black and white, right and wrong. I built my skills in small increments. I never leaped.

In the interview, Marcy talked about having a drawer full of unfinished symphonies that nobody wanted. My reaction to reading that was me, me, me! Before the pivotal moment, everything was shiny new. I didn't buy used. I didn't recycle. I never thought of a skirt or a jacket or a top as fabric in another format and since then re-fashioning has become one of my favourite ways to work. This purple purse is made from remnants of a denim jacket, remnants of a patchwork shirt that was refashioned once before from a broomstick skirt, remnants of an organza wrap, and some fused bits left from other projects.

If I'd never learned to leap, I could not have sewn even one of the bags you've seen over the past few weeks because they're all something made from nothing. The bits and pieces they started with, I would have once considered garbage. Each developed one step at a time. All I knew was the first step and that in the end it would be a purse. That's not black and white. That's flexible.

Leaping gets MUCH easier with practice and with detaching from the results. As I used to tell my students, masterpieces are a bonus. Just start. Do one thing. Stay with the project. See where it goes. Enjoy the journey. It all sounds so trite but it's true. There's an amazing energy that comes from being fully immersed in the creative process to say nothing of tremendous learning.  No matter the results, that learning, that energy, goes forward with you.

Most of the bags I've sewn have had narrow - 1" to 2" - bottoms At 4" this one is much wider. I like the defined space, the solid feel, and how cute the purse feet look. I didn't set out to make a big bottom bag, it happened along the way but now that I've made one, I'll make more. That's just one example of learning you take forward.

My original intent was to use a purse frame. The wider bottom was to give the purse some heft and shape only...

... the fabric ended up having too much heft of its own especially after it was stitched. In the image above, there are four layered fabrics with a dotted organza on top. I added the meandering stitching to secure them together which - while lovely - added weight and rigidity to the results and changed directions for the project. In the past, when the fabric was wrong for the project, it's quite possible that I would have wadded it all up and thrown it out. Since that pivotal moment, I've learned to evolve the project or - at the very least - save the fabric.

When a project changes directions mid course, you're scrambling to figure things out. A good place to start can be with the lining. The curved edges along the top worked well and I wanted to maintain them although the sides were reshaped. The lining is the same recycled silk dupioni used in previous project. LOVE it!

After the bottom was sewn and triple stitched and trimmed and the purse feet were in place, I wasn't taking it apart so many of the following stages became more awkward such as sewing on the flap. Without the purse frame, a closure was necessary. It had to and can be done. There's always a way to puzzle it out which is good for our brains in all kinds of ways - like Alzheimer prevention.

Yesterday, I finished the twelfth bag. Pictures tomorrow. After that, labels, photography, paperwork, and then a bag break. I'm eager to move in new directions like sewing together the bleached knits from a few weeks ago with the coverstitch machine I bought a few months ago both of which have had to wait while I finish up other commitments. There's an edge of nervousness. I've never done that before. There's also a big edge of excitement to be learning something new. I'm considering playing with the stencils I purchased at the workshop. The three would go great together. It's different. It's in the direction of "creative everyday wear" - one of my goals. I'm capable. I can figure this out and if I can't, I can figure something out. It'll come together in the end. That's what I mean by from a position of ignorance rather than intelligence. It's way more fun than black and white!

Talk soon - Myrna

Grateful - pivotal moments