Isolation Creation

A few weeks ago when the newness of this isolation was wearing off I was scrolling through instagram and saw that an artist I follow  and love— Jamie Beck — was challenging herself to create every day.  She’s a photographer who lives in France (swoon) so she has been taking still-life and self-portrait photos every day to prove to herself (and all of us) that even in the darkest hours of confinement there is still creativity. 

I’m not a professional photographer but I do have creative hobbies that for so long I put on hold. I thought about them often and would day dream about having time to make something by hand.  I even sourced all the supplies I needed to create again, but then life would happen and I would get side tracked with the business of things and all those places I needed to go.  After days of sitting in an office from sun up to sun down the weekend would come around and all I would want to do is get out! 

Now that I don’t have an office to go to – other than my home “office” — and all the “things” have been basically put on hold I thought now would be a good time too deep dive into YouTube and pick up on a few hobbies while I have the time. 

Years ago, back when I was living in New  York the first time I picked up sewing.  I have a hard to fit frame and really I got started out of necessity. I couldn’t find clothes made for someone who had no waist and a near 6 foot frame.  I decided to take things into my own hands — I lived in NY after all, one of the fashion capitals of the world and I had internet. 

In the early days I really dove deep into the finer points of dressmaking and got really good at skirts and basic dresses but, it really ended there. I always wanted to be able to make things like shirts and pants but things never worked out. Last year (more than once) I decided I was going to take it back up and learn more about garment making and while I was really good at sourcing materials I was not all that good at getting started. 

I actually got started a few weeks ago now — has it already been a month!? How time flies when you have nowhere to go.  I got out the sewing machines and all the things required to get going again. 

Now, I’ll be honest it hasn’t been smooth sailing across the board. There have been mistakes and project abandonment but, there has been good things too. A somewhat surprising amount of successes. Things I would actually be proud to use outside the confinement of my house. 

I look forward to the day when I can put on one of these new dresses and walk down the street without a mask — although I have some of those too. In the mean time I’ll share them here — just as soon as I get buttons for all of them!