Dearest sewing friends,
I made some big changes to the border and belt of my sweatercoat no. 2... switching up the edging of the border for another fabruc, instead of the one from my mum's/ gran's sewing box...
Once I'd finished neatening up the bottom border, I saw that it was too short, and this made me think of cutting the draft-belt in two, because I didn't like how it had a seam there in the middle of it....
Instead I decided to use the big white cardigan that I'd used for the draft-bottom-border, and cut a two-layered strip all the way from one sleeve cuff to the other:
Below are more snapshots of the process, which has taken a few hours of sessions so far.
This above is the final effect, of an old favourite multicoloured cardigan - shrunk badly in the wash! - cut into strips and sewn into a longer strip, then sewn by hand into the new, extended border, then turned back on itself and sewn (again by hand) as a kind of rounded weighty edging into the bottom border.
Above: fiddling to pin it into right form! I was excitedly anticipating the reveal, and the long handsewing took agesssssss!
It's turning into a very long project, but this does feel right and wonderful: making a garment in this way, spontaneously, intuitively, slowly aand circuitously, means that it will have a power-full energy when I wear it.
I often think of how making meaningful clothing is a very important thing to hand down to the next generation: beginning new traditions even,new kinds of clothing, unique shapes and form and colour combinations .... I love walking out of the house with something on which cannot be pidgeon-holed!
Love!
Clare.
