By the weekend, I normally have so much that I want to say about my sewing. But this weekend, my mind was full of stuff. It was fashion week in New York City and I have been avidly following the collections, reading newspaper articles, watching the shows on television and reading blogs about the fashion shows.
I am also a huge fan of Project Runway and since the final four contestants showed at Fashion Week, I have invested quite a bit of time into reading blogs about their collections and reviewing pictures. And finally, the spring catalogs have been hitting my mailbox with loads of inspirational pictures of spring garments.
Until Saturday evening it had been so mild in the Northeast that I was starting to catch a little spring fever. Not anymore...24 inches of snow has a way of changing your mind about that! *LOL*
My original intent had been to write something about inspiration and to include a few pictures of garments that were really appealing to my creative juices and a few shots of items I was working on and then including some links to women's sewing that inspired me. But I think I have a case of inspiration overload! My mind has seen so much fashion this week, that my inspiration circuits have been short circuited! Okay, say that three times fast! *smile*
So does this happen to anyone else? Do you ingest so much that you have a hard time putting it out? Or does your sewing reflect a need for wearable clothing rather than a need to create beautiful garments? See, this just goes back to why do you sew? But I know that isn't the question here! It is more like, when do the things you see, touch, hear, affect you so much that it stymies your creative ability? And how do you turn those things off, so that you can get in touch with your inner voice and hear the things that you need to create? Also, how many of us hear our inner voice? How many of us follow it when sewing? Or are we sewing journeymen? Just putting together the techniques and never letting our creative senses take the lead to make fantastic, magical garments? Tell me, are you a sewing journeyman or a sewing artist creating dreams and magic with your sewing machine?
I wouldn't mind being a journeyman! I don't have the technical skill yet to sew everything I see. I'm still making a hot buttered mess for every three or four completions. This makes it very easy for me to shut out the stimuli. I can't do a lot of the things I see!
ReplyDeleteAnd it's very easy for me to see like a dog. In black and white, high contrast with negative space. Probably things like color and surface detail are less natural for me.
I'm working on it, I'm working on it. I'm choosing new fabrics, trying new techniques every time, I read..So I guess I choose my projects not really for need, more for the next little hurdle jump.
After I get the construction thing going, then I will focus on realizing my own vision. I definitely have the seeds of ideas that aren't available in the current crop of patterns.
Short answer: Apprentice journeyman. (: