One Checked Off the List

Monday was a bonus day off--no one else around, no distractions other than those in my own mind. But with purpose and resolve, I turned off those distractions and actually accomplished something. Amazing but true.

This is a jumper, made from a gorgeous muted wool tartan purchased in a wonder-filled Monmartre fabric shop (in which I could happily live out the remainder of my life) on the fabled Paris trip of 1996. The design is empire waisted, but the pattern probably wasn't geared for a medium-weight wool like this. I did a terrific job making the thing--everything was matched perfectly and sewn well, but the jumper had entirely too much fabric in it. A long-ago co-worker of mine once said that NO ONE ought to be wearing five yards of fabric, and this jumper was voluminous testimony to the truth of that.

Two years ago, I folded it up on a table in the studio, figuring I'd get right to it. Yeah, and you can probably figure out the rest. It got moved from table to shelf and back again, through a delirious two years of full-blown, world-class procrastination.

A couple months ago, I ripped the thing apart. Then I got paralyzed on details--do I cut four inches off each side seam? Or six inches? I dithered about that for another few weeks. Yesterday, with unusual decisiveness I decided to...split the difference. A total of twenty inches of lovely wool was trimmed away and the whole thing was neatly reassembled, with a minuimum of moaning and stupid error. There was just a teeny bit of cursing over getting the pockets situated correctly, but we'll gloss over that unfortunate part of the story.

One of my adages has always been that it's fun to sew things, but it's no fun whatsoever to RE-sew them. But you know what? When I actually got to it, it took only about two and a half hours to finish the job.

Great temporary satisfaction. About fifty other similar projects await.

Sigh.

Back to work today. This is likely to be a killer as we plow through the requests and returns of the last five days, and prepare for our first van pickup/delivery since Thursday last. I think it's a jeans day.