Look at all the stuff I’ve made since I’ve been home from Paris.
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Grey houndstooth check silk self-lined cap sleeve blouse, indigo cashmere scarf with periwinkle lacework ends, men’s saddle-stitched wallet in recycled black leather, periwinkle cashmere kilt-stitch scarf, black suede band for vintage Elgin watch, all by Jenna. Not pictured: Indigo-and-periwinkle cashmere fan-and-feather scarf, given to aunt for Christmas. Tools used: Hammer, awl, gym-buffed guns, straight pins, linen thread, bookbinder’s needles, tailor’s chalk, rotary cutter, iron, knitting needles (sizes US 6 and 8), beeswax, many hours of NPR podcasts.
This is what happens when you have too many ill-fitting cashmere sweaters, an ugly black leather skirt you bought for 3 Euro in a friperie, a watch without a band, and a lot of free time.
My senior year of college, I started holding Friday craft sessions in my and Peter’s tiny apartment. I called the event Crafternoon!, invited all my friends, and we would sit around knitting, felting, sewing and patternmaking. Uncertain crafters would bring thrift-store finds with missing buttons or torn linings. Experienced folk would make entire garments. And we’d all drink tea (or Bloody Marys). It was a good excuse to clean the apartment at least once a week, and I enjoyed prioritising time during college for a form of expression that was manual instead of intellectual.
Mostly Crafternoon! reminded me of sewing and talking about sewing back in New Zealand with my best friend, Sophie, and wearing our dueling home-made jeans to school mufti days. (I remember I was very proud of a pair I’d made was edged with a metric shit tonne of white piping, and featured red accent fabric that striped down the sides and morphed into shin-height pockets, while my favourite of hers was a pair with a lazy fluoro green wiggle of trim that curlicued up one leg and then cleverly edged the corresponding hip pocket. Our jeans were as a rule wide-legged, busily trimmed, and constructed of inky dark denim. God we wore such ugly, complicated, pants.)
I miss Crafternoon! because crafting with only a (n incredibly wonderful, patient, cuddly, easygoing) cat for company feels a little spinsterish. When I start making cat-themed projects, or actually incorporating Truman’s copious quantities of loosed fluff into my wares (cat-hair felt? cat-hair batting? cat-hair as raw product for homespun yarn? these are the things I think about), then it’ll be time for an intervention.
Until then, please excuse me, I have to make some jeans.
7 responses so far ↓
britt // January 14, 2008 at 1:46 am
crafternoon misses you as well. attempts to revive it have occurred. they have been rather unsuccessful.
photojenna // January 14, 2008 at 8:11 am
I heard from Shajia you guys were trying to do more crafting-and-drinking. I’m there in spirit, guys!
sophie // January 14, 2008 at 9:48 pm
the america pants!! ahh hahaha…
phoebe // January 15, 2008 at 5:57 am
Your cathair batting idea left us without breath for a good minute, you should know. Our newly adopted squeal jar got a good dollar or so. We’ll be rich soon! So thanks for that. Phoebe has been trying to craft in daylight, but has gotten only five inches into a hat, confused by “RS” and “WS” on the pattern. Crafterhours are in full force.
Heart,
Marphee
Nick // January 16, 2008 at 11:18 pm
My friend Carol recently brought her unfinished, knitted cat bed to the bar and we still haven’t intervened. I think you’re alright. You two would probably get along famously though.
Mum // January 17, 2008 at 10:22 pm
I love your creations, even the jeans!
Love, Mum
photojenna // January 27, 2008 at 9:15 am
Margaret — tell Phoebe to try a double-sided pattern, with a low number of rows in each repeat. Then she should only have to keep a row count (which is easy if the pattern repeats in less than 10 rows) and not worry about RS or WS. If all else fails, scarves = easier than hats. Just sayin’.
Nick — I don’t know what it is, but knitting and drinking go well together. The drink motivates me to knit faster, so I can finish a row more quickly (because at the end of the row, I can take a sip). And mindless patterns don’t suffer if you mess up a stitch here or there due to your Bloody Mary haze. Whereas when I’m sewing, I get sucked into the project and will ignore half-cups of tea until I rediscover them, curdled, a week later, knitting seems to require a more social level of concentration, and encourage a more social kind of drinking. I think it also helps that the needles are not as sharp. Carol sounds like a smart woman — while the rest of you are just getting drunk, she’s getting drunk and making a (no doubt adorable) dog bed.
Mum — I’m glad I made all those weird jeans, I learned plenty over the pairs. Still wear the black ones I made the summer before university. But it would take a mother to actually love the America pants. They were totally hidzalicious.
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