Addicted to pattern

The other night I came to the realization that I may have started a project with too much pattern, even for me.  This is  the stack of fabric that I saw that night.

(I apologize for the colors being off. Tungsten lights, ugg)

Yes, that's all for one project.

I must explain that I.Love.Pattern.  I love combining different fabrics with crazy patterns, papers as well, I love drawing pattern, I love sculpting pattern.  I.Love.Pattern.  Some would even say I'm addicted.  Yesterday, when I was working with scraps on a Valentines project was the first time I used a solid in I don't know how many months. (I lied. I used a solid to line my Dad's iPad bag. It was an amazing chartreuse, though, and for someone else's taste.)  To me small pattern on a fabric = solid.  Solid = why?  I love pattern as much as Mortimer loves using obscure literary references when talking with his friends. O.k. enough about my lifelong obsession.  Back to the project.

So the night I took that picture, I went to bed thinking about all that pattern, and not being quite sure if I really wanted to include it all.  But once I pick fabric for a project it's virtually impossible for me to change it (unless I can include more pattern somehow :)  My gut aesthetic just won't let me do it.  Once I get it right, it's right, no going back.  So the next day, I just started putting it all together, every single bit of that pattern.  And it felt good.  See, my guts didn't mislead me.

Here's what it looked like last night before I went to bed.

With the balloon fabric on either end.  That big solid brown rectangle in the center? Corduroy.  As a sculptor, anything with texture feels like a pattern to me.  Pattern is just visual texture.  (have I said the word pattern enough? Really? Cause I could say it some more....)

That big ol' mass of fabric is going to be our library bag.  A ginormous library bag.  Because my Little Creature is at the I-must-go-everywhere-mySELF-and-quickly-Mama phase, so we need a big bag we can toss books in as we go at the library (last time we were there I swore I would never go with him by myself again, luckily my neighbor, who is smarter than I am, suggested taking a stroller and a big bag.  She has wiggly kids, too.   Then she contributed a nice little fold up stroller, as both of mine are big enough to take up a whole isle in our tiny little library.  She said she just straps her kids in, and grabs any book that looks interesting.  She ends up with tons of books she doesn't get read, but at least she gets to the library. Besides, Mortimer can read all of mine for me.  And yes, I wrote that whole story in parenthesis. )

Here's hoping I can get this bag finished soon, because the Little Creature and I need some new picture books to read.  Trumping the bag on my priority list are some receiving blankets and some baby booties.  Both need to be given to the recipients this weekend.  The little creature is transitioning to one nap, though, so my sewing time is decreasing severely.  I can just imagine him getting right up in my face while at the machine with his drool (teething) and little busy hands, that can now reach up on to the sewing table. (Shudder)  So no sewing while Little Creature is awake.


*After a nights sleep the editor, creator, and writer would like to clarify that by PATTERN when referring to fabric, she means PRINT.  (I call it all pattern, but that gets a little confusing when referring to fabric since, well, patterns usually mean that thing that tells you how to make stuff. Heh.)

Mortimer the Muse

Now I've gone and done it.  I've started a blog that I'm committing to write posts for on a regular basis. Oy.  It's all Mortimer's fault.

You see a few weeks ago I was looking out of my window and I saw a furry little head poke up in my grass.  'Yikes! A mouse!' I thought.  Oh, no. Not a mouse.  A vole.  And so I watched him fascinated. (Who cares that he was destroying my lawn! Pppbt!) 

He (it  really could have been a she, I didn't think to ask) worked away eating the nice roots of my lawn, creating his little corridors, popping up to take a look around for neighborhood cats, and then getting back to the roots.  I could have watched him for hours.  Animals fascinate me.  Especially when I can watch them doing what they do naturally, when I can be the hidden observer.  Instead I closed the curtains and got back to doing whatever I was doing that day.  What I didn't realize was that it wasn't any old ordinary garden pest that had moved into my yard.  It was my muse.  Who knew a vole could be a muse!  I've come up with all kinds of clever stories about Mortimer and his friends (because of course if I'm going to create one highly literary character out of a rodent, he has to have friends).  My sister looks forward to updates on the life of Mortimer.  I enjoy thinking of his exploits.

But this blog is not about Mortimer. It's about my need to create things. Something. Each day. Creating something with fabric or pen and paper gives me energy, lifts me up. And I noticed a strange thing after Mortimer moved in. Not only was I able to create things, but now I was able to finish them.  Instead of only having a continually and quickly growing pile of works-in-progress in addition I now have a slowly growing list of projects checked off because they.are.all.done. (do you hear the angels singing?)


Mortimer is my muse.  His arrival has given me new energy and drive. I'm inspired to create and to finish. (Because of course that has nothing to do with any New Year's Resolutions I may or may not have made. Ahem.)

I have continued to look out the window hoping to observe my friend each day, but he hasn't shown up to my voyeur sessions like he's supposed to. There are many possible reasons for his rudeness, but I like to think that he's ensconced in his library reading a highly academic book that requires hours of pondering (since I will never make it through one of those).  In the mean time I continue to sew, to create, to design.