A random update: I made my first sewn garment! I had knitted, crocheted and customized before, but this is a new milestone. And even brand new this garment already has a story. My little South African top needed an additional and more neutral bottom, then my friend Liisa taught me my sewing machine basics, my friend Julie invited me to take from her fabric stash whatever I wanted, and Carmen from Opció Taller accompanied me through all the troubleshooting this supposedly easy project needed. The whole precision thing is something I’m still working on, being accustomed that the code I write for my little statistics at work is basically endlessly tweakable and reiterations don’t leave trace. As far as I don’t show the inside of this skirt to my mom, we are all happy and set!
And now the brain nom-noms:
How could you resist a merge of Japanese shapes with African prints? Why would you? Why hadn’t this happened before? Cameroonian artist and Japanese designer collab for stunning Kimono line. (Hat tip to Sanjukta for this one!)
Just a brief reminder on what’s the problem with faux fur. In case you were wondering.
When reading about several African countries trying to forbid the import of second-hand clothing last year, I didn’t know that China did exactly the same thing in the 1990s (and now they are doing the same with our plastics). About the impact of that policy on the local industry, The State of Fashion Design in China.
And just to rub in how far I am from the actual design and fashion vanguard, turns out that there is a whole color thing going on: Why Millennial Pink Refuses to Go Away, Why Are We So Obsessed With Millennial Pink? There’s A Scientific Explanation For Everything and Move Over, Millennial Pink — There’s a New Sheriff in Town. I live truly oblivious to this stuff… As an extra bonus, of course, the ‘scientific’ explanation boils down to ‘we don’t really know but we can quite confidently blame late capitalism for everything’.
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Do you make garments? If so, how do you then deal with the intimate knowledge of all the imperfections? Or is it that the pride of having done it compensates for all frustrations and suboptimal seams?
I do admire your skirt, it’s something I’d wear on a regular basis.And it looks great in the photos
I hope to learn to use a sewing machine one day(my mother didn’t want to teach me, as she worked as a seamstress for 10 years I think).
Regarding the imperfections…most clothes don’t age to well, so you learn to wear them with all their imperfections.
Thanks, Dori. And, as Nike would say, just do it! I finally started learning last year after years of thinking about it and it feels great. I mention my mother because she was great at sewing one epoch in her life (she made the dark blue dress I’m wearing in the outfit photos), so my little skirt is clearly very much substandard for her.
I think one of the nice things about sewing is that, if you keep doing it, you get better at it – and therefore the results become gradually less and less suboptimal. I’ve been sewing for a long time and have put some time into learning how to do the things I really want to do when I sew and I am now reaching the stage where, if I want a garment, I can sew it and produce something of higher quality (and certainly a better fit) than anything I could buy in an ordinary, high street store.
Hi, Mary! Oh, you are in a really nice place for sewing then. I’m now at the ‘in touch with reality’ valley where some of the initial excitement has disappeared and I’ve realized how much skills, both cognitive (actual sewing) and non cognitive (precision!) I’m lacking – so much more practice needed before it becomes reasonably ‘perfect’. I want to be more like you when I grow up!