Trampled by Geese is a reminder to myself to look at the positive side of life and to endeavour to only write about things that inspire me rather than focus on what is negative in the world. Kirkegaard once wrote, “Being trampled by geese is a slow way of dying, but being eaten to death by envy and greed is even slower and more painful”.
Showing posts with label capsule wardrobe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label capsule wardrobe. Show all posts
Hens are great layers. But even better are clothes layered on top of each other. It transforms a seasonal outfit into a multi-season extravaganza!
Winters on the farm are muddy, mucky, bloody, and occasionally snowy. I do a lot of laundry.
Come lambing season, I can do two or three loads of laundry a day.
So I want farm clothes that wash well, like cotton. Only the problem with cotton is that it's not very warm. It actually, what's the opposite of warm? A single layer of cotton is terrible for working outside in the winter because if the cotton gets wet, it chills the human and can cause health issues. So we could be forgiven for thinking that if a single layer does harm, a lot would do more.
Layering the clothes creates air gaps that allow the skin to breathe and provide insulation so I can stay outside longer to get things done. And since I often wear skirts or dresses when working on the farm, I can take my fall and spring cotton skirts and transform them into winter skirts by adding a petticoat or two underneath.
I enjoyed this project. It's the first time I've made something from sheep to clothing that feels like a quality garment. What's more, it's a sheep from my farm! One that I feed every day and who loves cuddles.
In a lot of ways I've gained confidence. I understand better how the yarn behaves in the woven cloth and that I can actually make something from scratch. I also understand why a more historically accurate cloth would involve a lot more people: a shepherd, weaver, spinner, seamstress, etc. It seems almost that I lose as much as I gain doing each step myself.
One of the things I worry about is this sets the bar too high. Both for me and for viewers.
There's no need to do every step ourselves. I did it because I was curious if I could and I'm a cheap little chicken who can't always afford to buy the cloth I want to work with. Even in this project, I combined modern cloth with traditional methods. Add growing, spinning, and weaving the lining to the mix and I would need another year or three to get it done. But even then, I don't think it would have been as good for the cloak as the lining I choose.
It's about learning from history instead of trying to reproduce it. What can I learn from the past and how can I incorporate it in my life today. There's no shame in it. There's no shame if a future project has bought yarn or I go to the shop and buy fabric. And yet, it's a nagging worry that I now need to progress to better and better things, especially on my youtube journey. That's not the path I want to take. I want to make projects that fill me with joy, and sometimes that means buying yarn. Sometimes it means spinning it.
Sometimes there won't be any yarn involved at all.
Most of all, I'm happy with the improvement in my video-making skills. I'm getting better at what to film and what to leave out. My voiceover confidence is improving. I'm still seeking a balance between showing enough for the technically curious and keeping the story moving, but on the whole, I've moved up a notch and am now about 11% of the filmmaker I want to become.
It's been difficult to work on my Albion Coat when the weather has been so warm. But the rains are trying to break through and it's now cool enough in the mornings to light the woodstove until the sun is high enough to heat the house.
So I'm spending that half an hour of coolness between the time I light the fire and my coffee is finished brewing and ... what's a good way to say "getting drunk" without it sounding like my coffee is boozing it up at 6am? Anyway, I'm spending that time working on my Duffle Coat.
The worst part so far was cutting up the paper for the PDF pattern. There is so much wasted paper in this pattern (and yes, I checked the measurement to make sure it was printing the right size). It's especially noticeable after working on that free PDF pattern for my cloak where I didn't have to cut up any pieces of paper. Here, I'll show the difference.
The pattern on the left is from the cloak, the one on the right is from the Albion Duffle Coat. Both are formatted to print on North American or Metric paper, and yet here we are. So much wasted space on the right one. I feel like they could have reduced the paper by almost a quarter by doing better with the margins.
Wow, I may have just jumped the shark here, but I did it. I made a cloak, entirely by hand, using traditional methods, from sheep to finished clothing!
Basically, I gave in to peer pressure and put my life on hold to make this cloak. It turned out amazing, but I still have a lot of work to do to finish it up. Something to keep me busy this winter.
I want to talk about the pattern because the video was long and I edited that bit out. Also I don't really feel qualified to assess a sewing pattern as a complete N00b!
It's yardage now and it is more beautiful than I could have expected. The weaving took longer than I had hoped. I think that's because I rushed through the spinning so quickly that I didn't get as consistent a yarn as I prefer.
I'm a fairly good weaver but I do have my comfort zone and this wasn't in it.
Actually, there is a pretty good reason. I wanted to understand how circle cloaks work so I made some tiny mockups. And since the only thing I have that resembles a doll are these chickens...
The duffle coat project advances. A decision has been made and after much humming and hawing, I decided to go with the Albion Coat sewing pattern. I chose this pattern because they gave away some great resources for free and it gave me confidence that I would be able to make a beautiful coat with their instructions.
Because I can never be easy on myself, I am going to sew a version of the longer coat, but unlined in keeping with the duffle coat of my past.
I've got a few other changes up my sleeve, but that's going to have to wait because this:
It's complicated, but basically last year, I didn't have a winter coat. Given that we had some record-breaking rainfall and cold, looking back... it might have been a mistake to try to deal with winter without a coat. I figure the rest of my clothing can last me well enough but for my health and wellbeing, I need a coat before winter gets here which means, I had best start sewing now.
Thinking back on all the coats I've owned in my life, one coat stands out in my memory more than all the others. I remember it with great fondness. It was a real duffle coat. Fawn coloured, I bought it used for a steal because of the cigarette burns (which I patched with strawberry patches so it looked cute and I could always tell my coat from the others). What I thought was really neat was the way the fabric was double-sided, but all one fabric. There was plaid on the inside but fulled fawn twill on the outside. Very thick cloth - almost too thick. No lining (so sometimes arms would be difficult to get in and out). Just a single layer of double-sided cloth.
It could almost be worn inside out coat if the buttons and pockets were in the right place. But alas, no.
I finally wore it out after over a decade of constant use.
Looking at my wardrobe goals, a Duffle Coat would fit with the Farmwear (good elemental protection, vintage look) and with the Scholarly Functional look. I love that it can do double duty.
I couldn't find the fawn fabric that I wanted, but I did find some pretty amazing fabric on sale at the local fabric shop. It's a wool nylon blend. Knowing this shop, it's probably vintage as they bought a huge amount of overstock of wool and wool blends over the decades and this has that vintage mothball smell. It would be fun to find out more about the history of this cloth.
The most frustrating thing about recovering is trying to find momentum. But I'm working on it, building a bit more each day. Finally got into a routine with making coffee and having an hour of craft time while listening to an audiobook or lo-fi girl each morning.
Mostly I'm working on my sewing, trying to make a block pattern. This is a map of my body that I can use to make my own sewing patterns. I need this because my body is now a massively different shape and it could open a huge world of possibilities to me - and save loads of money in that I don't need to buy new patterns each time I want to make something new.
Life is messy and stuff. Today is the first day I've turned my computer on after coming out of the hospital and very soon, I'll be heading back to bed for my second nap of the morning. Like I said, life is messy.
But it has given me lots of thinking and I want to leave my future self a note. Because THIS is an awesome opportunity to deliberately choose my new wardrobe. My shape has changed and I will need to buy or make new clothing, so why not see if I can find clothes I like.
