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Paralyzing Procrastination

7/14/2021

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If procrastination were an Olympic event, I could represent my country... eventually... aw, heck, I wouldn't get around to it.  In school, like many smart kids, I discovered that I could rush my homework at the last minute and still get decent grades, so there was little need to budget time for study.  As an adult, my lack of discipline around time has greater consequences.  I try to combat procrastination by various means.  For instance, I say I need a deadline.  Without a  deadline, I won't finish.  But in practice, a deadline only works if it's imposed by another; if I have a deadline from someone else, it activates my dread of disappointing people, but my self-imposed deadlines have no teeth.  Still, that's not a good solution; do I really want to be motivated by dread and obligation? 

In the last several years, when sewing for paying clients, I kept repeating the same miserable cycle: I'd get a project with a deadline; I'd be excited about the possibilities and make plans to do something really cool; I'd get intimidated by my own perfectionism, so I'd fail to start; I'd fail to do anything else, either, because I felt guilty to work on things that were not my assigned project; I'd talk badly to myself in frustration; finally the deadline would near and I'd rush to finish, feeling a surge of creativity and pleasure in creation, but falling short of my perfect vision because of lack of time; I'd deliver the project and feel freed to do other things again. 

In the winter of 2020-2021, it got really bad, as I had a perfect storm of other issues and winter depression as well.  There was a jacket that might have taken me two weeks to make if I'd budgeted a few evenings here and there, but instead too nearly six months of angsting and procrastinating.  I was happy with the jacket, but at my wits end with my own maladaptive behavior! 

Then one day I saw a video put out by Cathy Hay, a historical costumer and researcher whom I follow.  She said something that may have opened a door in my head:
There's a transition you go through when you switch from having a project to having a finished thing.  And that's because you change role... from Maker to Owner of a thing.  You switch, when it's finished, from being the maker of the thing to the person who's judging the finished thing.  So when you're afraid of finishing, it's really the Maker in you who is afraid of the Owner, the judge, that is gonna look at the finished thing and judge it.

And the Maker needs to talk to the owner and say “I'm okay with this, however it turns out. I don't really care what the owner thinks, because the maker had fun making it.”
I've since practiced telling my maker-self what my owner self will think, even before the thing is done, so I can finish.  I'll say things like "I'm going to love having this blanket", or "I will use the heck out of this, and be charmed by its quirks" or "It'll be nice to hear others admire this, and only I will know about this mistake... it'll be my little secret."  My future self trying to earn the trust of my present one.  I think it's helping. 
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Making the March Sisters

4/23/2020

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Big news in the world of sewing vloggers!  Which is to say, not big news, but I am enthused.  In December 2019, Sony Pictures released a new version of Little Women (Louisa May Alcott's novel about four sisters), directed by Greta Gerwig.  In February 2020, at the 92nd Academy awards, the film won Best Costume Design for Jacqueline Durran's costumes. 
Picture
Apparently, Sony has a good handle on which demographic will truly obsess about their film, because that same month they contacted four historical costumers who have followings on YouTube and asked them to make Little Women inspired costumes, as part of the extended promotion for the upcoming digital and BlueRay releases.  Each vlogger got a copy of the film to watch, a sister to sew for, and sponsorship.  Each made a video showing their project development, talking about the film and their character, and showing the finished costume.  What a great idea!
Today, I'll talk talk briefly about Louisa May Alcott and her novel, ruminate on womanhood in fiction and fashion, and show the various vloggers' creations. 

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Honesty About Money...

1/7/2019

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A year or so back, a woman late of Hawai'i asked me to make her puletasi, a two piece Samoan ensemble of fitted blouse and wrap skirt.  She was unhappy with the work of her current seamstress, who didn't finish seam allowances in any way.

We had a brief email exchange, in which it quickly became clear that we had very different ideas about a fair price for the labor, and it ended amicably with us agreeing not to work together.  But it was such an interesting exchange, especially in light of my previous ruminations on money, that I want to examine it. 

I will not be betraying any personal or identifiable details here, just the bare bones of our disagreement, and the broader question of pricing and the value of time/work. 
Picture
Puletasi, by Amolioo [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons

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Feminism and Consideration

12/27/2018

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One day I told my mom, in passing, that I was a feminist.  "You are?!" she asked in bewilderment, and I wondered what feminism meant to her.  As I see it, I am a feminist because of the things my mother taught me: I believe in educating myself, paying my own way, embracing my inherent strengths, appreciating how I'm different from men, being strong and gentle, standing up to people who would use or devalue me, voting, et cetera.  Why would the word "feminist" put her off when she knows and approves all those things about me? 

But when I read something like this, I understand where the confusion comes from:
I should be able to dress how I want and act how I want.  That's what feminism is about, not about making others feel comfortable.
-- Emily Ratajkowski (a model), interviewed in Marie Claire Magazine, June 2018. 

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Is it Vanity to Care About Clothes?

8/20/2018

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When I look at my life over the past few years I see two streams of thought: thoughts of God/faith/Christianity, and thoughts of clothes/sewing/external presentation.  To many, these would seem incompatible.  Doesn't Christianity frown on thinking too much about clothes?  Or, in some denominations, doesn't Christianity obsess about clothes in a censorious way that denies wearers any joy in their raiment? 

(All Bible quotes in this post are from the NIV.)

Picture
Stove tile (1530's) showing vanity, from South Tyrol. UBC Museum of Anthropology, Cat. No. Cg102/103. By Wolfgang Sauber [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], from Wikimedia Commons.

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Bathing in a Semiotic Sea

7/12/2018

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Two friends of mine have been talking about clothes lately.  Here are their situations in brief:

Friend A is a professional woman, a freelancer, whose life and work intertwine a lot.  She works with clients in her studio in her apartment, for example.  She is interested in curating her wardrobe so it works for easy daily wear, but also gives the impression of competence, professionalism, and style.  She wants to be able to grab any item from her closet in the morning, and look like a put-together professional.  She sees it in terms of costuming: dressing for the role she has to play. 

Friend B is a professional woman as well.  Her job requires a college degree, but is also physical and doesn't require dressing up.  A very active person, she likes to wear comfortable clothes, like sweat pants and gym-wear, on her days off.  However, when people routinely tell her she looks like a teenager or young college student, she finds this annoying.  She worries that people are telling her she's immature, or are judging her as less serious because of her clothes.  So now she's wondering: should she make an effort to dress more "adult" in order to forestall those comments?  And if she does, does that mean she's less of herself? 

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Colorizing

7/5/2018

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When I was in school, I was taught how to make colors with paint, and my understanding of color has been pigment-based since then, so imagine my confusion to find that when mixing light instead of paint, there are different primary colors!  For instance, in pigments, Blue+Yellow=Green; Blue and Yellow are primary and Green is secondary.  In additive color mixing, Red+Green=Yellow, and in subtractive color mixing, Yellow+Cyan=Green! 
Picture
By MichaelMaggs, from Wikimedia Commons

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Attitude Tees

6/25/2018

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Picture
an attitude tee
Well, Melania Trump has once again set off a storm with her wardrobe choices.  However, her jacket with graffiti-like writing on it, unlike her stilettos, cannot be construed as innocent.  See, shoes may be a message or may not.  And if shoes do mean something, it's debatable what they mean.  But English words written down are definitely a message, and the message is what the words say.  The only thing to debate is the context. 

Since the internet is full of people debating just that, I won't be redundant.  Instead, I'll go a different direction, and talk about a related topic: "attitude tees". 

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Architecture and Dress

5/31/2018

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The other day while reading Barchester Towers, I came across this characterization of Mrs. Stanhope, the indolent wife of an absentee clergyman:
The structure of her attire was always elaborate and yet never over-laboured.  She was rich in apparel but not bedizened with finery; her ornaments were costly, rare, and such as could not fail to attract notice, but they did not look as though worn with that purpose.  She well knew the great architectural secret of decorating her constructions, and never descended to construct a decoration.  But when we have said that Mrs. Stanhope knew how to dress and used her knowledge daily, we have said all. Other purpose in life she had none.
―  Anthony Trollope.  Barchester Towers, Chapter 9. 
Ouch!  A fit match for a husband who takes his job so seriously that he delegates it to a lesser-ranking clergyman and spends his life abroad, collecting butterflies and a salary for the work he's not doing!  But the part of the quote that intrigued me was the bit about the "great architectural secret", which sounded like a quote. 

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Memories in Stitches

3/19/2018

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Picture
Mending and Sewing Sampler from the Netherlands. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. The words mean "boarding school" and "sample".
Recently, as a project with fellow church members, I have been memorizing Romans chapter 8.  It's been a long time since I've done this kind of memory work, and I'm finding the process quite interesting.  Memorizing requires a kind of mental discipline that I used to have but which I've let grow weak as a result of my overuse of the Internet.  (I am aware of the irony of writing that on the Internet.)  It makes me think about memory in general...

As it relates to sewing, memory is necessarily kinesthetic: we don't learn stitches merely by looking at them or reciting the steps to make them; we learn them by hand.  Samplers, which are old fashioned showcases of a young woman's best sewing work in a wide variety of methods, were simultaneously displays of her needle expertise and reminders to herself of what she had in her repertoire... and when she, years later, looked at the sampler to remind herself of how a feather stitch was done, I imagine her hands remembered more than her eyes did! 

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    Karen Roy

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