I have been avoiding the sewing the pockets on my skirt for a month. Cutting the pattern took a month. Sewing the basting stitches took a month. Researching what a basting stitch was took two weeks (it has nothing to do with a tender, crisped skinned roast chicken).
This skirt project is painfully slow and by the time I get to the end, it will be Christmas and I wished I had used wool instead of denim. This is proving that my flavour for sewing is still a little “off.” Knitting feels more gratifying as I can pick up the needles and loop-by-loop work on a project but with sewing…
I need to press, and pin, and clear a space, and plug in a sewing machine which is rattling more than before. I don’t really know what I am doing aside from reading the booklet. When I think about the dumb pocket, I want to play sewing hooky. But like the one and only time I played hooky in high school, for the easiest class, I skipped the one mandatory class in the entire year, and lost two percent. My eventual skirt will feel 98% great if I skip on the pockets because pockets are important! I love them for my fidgety fingers, to keep a phone or keys. Pockets hold so many important things, even if mine are empty of any and all ambition.
I also hate these pockets because even after I fight through the pockets, and the waistband and somehow manage button holes, the skirt might not fit. Or it will hang weird. Or it’s too long (fixable), too short (forget about it) and it’s December and again, I should have started this project with wool.
Wool. My true friend.
Wool has been kind to me. Fabric and Sewing Machine try to tie my shoelaces together when I am having lunch in the cafeteria.
I am learning something about myself in this lethargic, loathsome project: and it’s my crafting style. Some knitters say they are “process knitters” while others are “project knitters.” Some are there for the row-by-row journey where others are like lighting hands on the needles so they get their item as soon as they can. When it comes to knitting, I think I am a “process knitter” only because I am not fast enough to be a project one.
With sewing? I am a project sewist because for heavens sake, the process sucks as much as it did for me in high school.
The only hope is that I have matured somewhat since that past decade, so perhaps my flavour for sewing will eventually mature too. Until then, let me be a churlish teenage sewist, and pierce my own ears (with a sewing needle, what else?) and wear moody colours and roll my eyes at anyone who has neat pockets on their bottoms (so…like…everyone is the enemy…). With some teenage spite, and some sweat, I’ll conquer those damn pockets. But don’t expect me to enjoy the process. I’m just doing it so I have a place to put my babysitting money.
From the camera roll: I wanted to share a different “pocket” we had the pleasure of hiking around this weekend. This one holds some fish but also the lovely reflections of the mountains. This is a pocket I feel passionate about. Lac de Tseuzier.