praising the sewing gods

not sure exactly how long it had been since i had sewn before sunday. well over three months, i believe.
when i say "not sewn" i mean just that. haven't touched a needle. at ALL.

so when i finally got my new sewing room all (well, mostly) organized last weekend i did so mentally preparing myself for a couple of frustrating first "back to sewing" sessions.

much to my surprise, the past three days of sewing have gone incredibly smoothly! the sewing gods must be forgiving gods.
i expected for my machine to meet me with a good bit of anger in her face and thought she'd let her hurt feelings after having been left abandoned for so long out on me. instead, i feel a little like the lost son who's welcomed home with a fancy party and lots of good food.
so i'm thanking whatever powers are in charge of lending me such wonderful creative karma! praise to the sewing gods!


first on the (now longer than ever) sewing to do list was trying my best to catch up with the bee europa quilting bee. i had missed three full months there and getting all those wonderful sewers their fabric back, preferably pieced together perfectly, has been my number one priority.

so i dove right back in working on the perfect "getting back into the swing of things" project, some totally free form blocks made from gorgeous (but slightly challenging to work with) linen and what i assume must be a linen/hemp blend?
here's the result. oh, yes, the pictures in the post are going to suck. germany has been acting like november the past few days. no sunshine whatsoever.





next on the bee list were these two blocks for a gorgeous spider web quilt by kaffe fassett .
this is where i for sure thought i was setting myself up for failure. the contrary! i absolutely loved working on these blocks and it's further strengthened my plan to make a spider web quilt for our bedroom some time soon. i have to admit i'm at least a wee bit proud of how nicely these turned out. the centers aren't a perfect match but i got those little corners to look a lot neater than i ever thought i'd be capable of. so that's pretty good. given how i haven't been practicing at all.





last night before going to bed i got out the next quilting bee envelope and read through the instructions. the plan was to work on these blocks today. but after a very rough night and out of the ordinary morning i realized i was just feeling way too puffy eyed and cloudy headed to work on somebody else's project today.

when i came back from dropping joon off at kindergarten, i found a yucky old pile of fabric on our front stoop. it was the seat of mika's little doll stroller. it had been half torn off for a while and eventually fell off altogether a couple of weeks ago. that thing was always ugly, navy blue with little brown bear claws, and when i bought it for joon the plan was to immediately pimp it with some nice fabric. as life goes that never happened. but then this morning these stroller remnants basically jumped my leg on the way into the house and i thought "well, maybe this is what i should be doing today!"
there's no before picture, but here's the after...







ironically, when i grabbed the stroller frame to bring inside and try the new seat on i realized that the frame, too, is broken. so i suppose i could've just bought a new stroller altogether. yup.

mika is in love with her old new stroller though and i feel pretty good knowing i'm still able to whip up my own creations, too.

joon was sad though that she didn't get anything and i had to promise her i'd make her something special tomorrow morning. ideas?

back to sewing

whoa. after almost a month away from my machine i finally made a couple things. nothing spectacular, but it feels oh. so. good.

it's all about refashioning during at least july and august, so i'm trying to reset my creative thinking and really enjoying the extra challenges that come with it.

here's what i've done so far...


an old skirt of mine which now enjoys a new life as a cute airy summer dress for joon.


this one doesn't even really count because all i did was shorten a dress into a skirt. but i'm so excited about every minute of sewing i get done and thrilled to have a cute new summer top. AND most importantly this piece of cloth is no longer sitting at the bottom of a closet but actually getting used! what a concept.


super comfy shirt i bought on sale. loved the shirt but hated the print. now the print is hidden under ikea cotton and rig rag and i love how it turned out.


woohoo! now i really hope i can get some more done tomorrow before dave disappears for a weekend of band fun.

the pledge

it's july 1st, a day i've been mentally preparing for the past couple of weeks. the reason today is special? it marks the first day of a 2-month long experiment for me.
i've decided to take the wardrobe refashion pledge.

the official rules as stated on the website are as follows...


1. No buying new! (handmade is excepted; So this allows for Etsy purchases etc!!) All clothing must be Recycled, Renovated, Preloved or Thrifted, or Handmade only for the term. Employment related and special needs clothing (ie sports, school), shoes and undies are excepted from the rules, although you are encouraged to have a go at making these.

2. In extreme circumstances, maybe a special event, or the worlds greatest and most amazing never to be repeated sale that you simply can not pass up, you may use the Get out of Refashionista Jail Free card. You are able to use this card once during the 2 month part of your contract; ie 1 for 2 months, 2 for 4 months etc. Of course you need to fess up on the blog and display the button!

3. You must post on the blog at least once a week to let the community know what you've been up to. This will not only give you brag points, but inspire and encorouge others! Of course you need to display the button on your blog and have copied the pledge in at least one post, and provide a link to your pledge under the button.

4. You need to be honest and admit when you've fallen off the Refashionista Wagon! Go directly to Refashionista Jail, do not pass GO and do not collect $200! Apply for parole once there.

refashioning has long been something of interest to me and i've collected several big moving boxes full of pre-loved (or not so loved) clothing in the past few years hoping that i'd one day put new life into these items and make them wearable again. once i really got into sewing though i unfortunately also really got into buying fancy new fabrics and so i created new items from scratch using new materials and those boxes have remained more or less untouched.

doing lots of thinking about consumer culture lately and having lots of interesting conversations with my awesomely driven creative and independent thinking husband i realize that i must try as best as i can to make use of the resources we have and that unfortunately the only way to change consumer culture is to avoid being a consumer of mass production whenever possible. even if that means being inconvenienced at times. so there are lots of "thinking outside the box" challenges ahead of me and i'm very much looking forward to facing them.

in addition of taking the pledge for clothing i've also promised myself that we as a family will take the spirit of no buying new! re-use! and less is more! to all aspects of life. over the next two months we will only purchase things we actually truly need or which will help enable us need less (i.e. we just spent 100 bucks on a bicycle cart to pull around the children in and will need to purchase new tires and small bits to get our bikes in running order so that we will have fewer reasons to use a car) and when we will try to purchase used items whenever possible.

i will post on the wardrobe refashion blog at least once a week about the wardrobe part of our experiment. if we make other cool discoveries or come up with cool anti-mass-consumption stuff i'll most likely post about it on our family blog.

so now here's the official part...

The Pledge

I, Karoline Stephens, pledge that I shall abstain from the purchase of "new" manufactured items of clothing, for the period of 2 months. I pledge that i shall refashion, renovate, recycle preloved items for myself with my own hands in fabric, yarn or other medium for the term of my contract. I pledge that I will share the love and post a photo of my refashioned, renovoted, recycled, crafted or created item of clothing on the Wardrobe Refashion blog, so that others may share the joy that thy thriftiness brings! Signed xxx.