So, I mentioned a little while back that I've been working more these last months. Since the beginning of this year, things have really kicked off, and in a pretty fun way too. I LOVE my job now! It scores high points in the European-politics-geek league, I get to run around doing things I'm good at and like doing, so it's all good. But. Of course there's a But! The But is: I'm running out of space in my head for sewing.
Cue small-scale identity crisis, which at least added some interest to February so it wasn't all bad. But I've spent almost five years leaving work at lunchtime and putting it immediately behind me, with oodles of afternoon ahead for playground knitting, short but frequent snatched sewing breaks, and - most importantly - the mental space to consider myself a full-time sewer who just happened to have a part-time job (and children. I haven't forgotten them, they're just not really relevant to the discussion at hand!) And now? I feel like I'm learning how to be myself again, with the goalposts truly and thoroughly moved. Not bad, just very different - and occasionally a little disconcerting. Just what kind of a sewer and/or person am I now?? (A post for another day, that!)
Anyway. How very greatly I'm appreciating the sewing that does happen! These Carolyn pyjamas - my first pair but, I very much hope, not my last - have been in almost constant use since I finished them in early January. In terms of sewing-effort investment, pyjamas offer a particularly high value return, don't they? You can wear them All. The. Time! (Almost). A good pair of pyjamas is like the very best kind of friend, the one that knows exactly when and how to administer big hugs (and when not to). Especially when they're made of double gauze.
(The pyjamas. I don't have friends made of double gauze). (Yet).
And have piping everywhere.
And BOUND BUTTONHOLES!
(because my sewing machine's buttonhole function is officially shit)
Imagine, if you will, coming home from a summit at 3am (yes, dear readers, this happened to me). You may have spotted various heads of state, but that's not enough to cheer up the prospect of being back there at 9am the next morning. All you have is the prospect of about 4 hours sleep, and you desperately want to make the most of it. What - what, I ask you?! - could possibly be better at that moment than the soft, comforting embrace of home made sleepwear? (Well, not finding a small child occupying my side of the bed would have been better I suppose. But that's not something I can sew a solution to).
I adore them, in all their crinkly, nubbly-fabricked, collar sticking-up glory. (The pyjamas, not the small child who regularly intrudes upon my bed. Obviously I love him, but, well, he's not made of double gauze is he? And he wriggles).
By the way: slim fitting pyjama bottoms* are the bomb. So much comfier than extra fabric bunching up where you don't want it. (*Feel free to snigger: I said bottoms!! Or have I been hanging around with the daughter too much?)
Anyway, that's me back on the blogging wagon. Clearly, blog writing is taking a bit of a backseat at the mo, what with wanting to spend my spare time on actual sewing and stuff - but I miss it, I like this little space which has brought me so many on and offline friends! (And which provides for all my sewing-related brain dump needs...) I've been wondering about just deciding to do a random little post once a week or so, instead of waiting to have something to write about - those are actually my favourite kind of posts to read these days, so it feels like it makes sense. So, who knows. Hopefully I'll 'see' you again soon!
And for today - tell me: do you have multiple identities or roles to play? (No doubt - we all do!) What place does sewing take in them? Would less time sewing make you question your own existence, too?
