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Nadine Feldman, Author

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You are here: Home / Archives for sewing

sewing

Women’s Work

May 2, 2012 by admin

My sister Amy modeling the prom dress I made.

When I was eight years old, my grandmother taught me how to knit. I started by making a belt with heavy yellow yarn, and the stitches got so tight I could hardly maneuver my needle through them. Still, I was proud of and excited about my efforts.

Over the years I learned to sew and embroider as well. Once I dressed up a pair of my sister’s blue jeans with an embroidered, multicolored Volkswagen (she owned a bug at the time). I took a couple of years of Home Ec, where I learned to make clothes. My proudest accomplishment was the prom dress I made in senior year, with lots of lace trim.

Those of us who grew up in the 60s and 70s got plenty of mixed messages. While we were learning how to do Women’s Work and make a proper home, we were also being exposed to new choices and possibilities. We learned that we didn’t have to feel tied to Women’s Work. This was a good thing, and I embraced feminism then as I do now.

I learned that engineering and science could be Women’s Work. I saw more and more women enter politics and other fields that were once male-dominated. It was an exciting, heady time.

Here’s the problem, though: I really enjoyed the traditional Women’s Work. I found it fun and relaxing to do. Yet I put it aside, seeing it somehow as oppressive, activities best left behind in the quest for a career.

For years I didn’t sew or do any kind of craft. Later, though, when recovering from a long and difficult illness, I rediscovered the delight of Women’s Work. I learned to quilt and make drapes. In working with fabric, I found healing in my body as well as my soul.

Still, once I got better and went back to work, I left my Women’s Work behind yet again.

Lately, I have found myself weary. I love to write novels, but I find the marketing difficult and tedious. In the midst of our cross-country move, I sent Blood & Loam off to my editor with the instructions to “take your time.” Sales for The Foreign Language of Friends have been flat, in large part because I’m not that consistent with the marketing. It’s still sort of a deep dark secret, actually. Other novel ideas have fizzled out. I have had to take a step back to regroup.

It is time to reconnect with Women’s Work.

Quaint Port Gamble, which reminds me of the small Massachusetts towns I love so much.

Here on the Olympic Peninsula, Women’s Work is everywhere. This past weekend we attended a Fiber and Fabric festival in Port Gamble, where women were spinning on the sidewalks, and I don’t mean with their bicycles! You can get big bags of wool, dyed or not, and spin away. It looked so relaxing, I wanted to run out immediately and get a spinner.  Groups abound, where women get together to chat and knit, spin, or quilt — and I am welcome to join.

I bought some fabric to make curtains. I picked out a quilting kit (I decided that to get back in the flow, a kit would be easier), and I bought some yarn to knit a skirt. I have a dedicated place now for my sewing machine, right by a cheerful window, and I’ve started to work.

Curtains in process.

Of course, a funny thing happens when I start doing Women’s Work. A delicious idea for a new novel bubbled up from the depths of my subconscious. It’s compelling and insistent, and I have to heed the call. Yes, my writing is Women’s Work, but to do it better and more happily, I may need to pick up the needle as well.

 

Some cool linen yarn to make a skirt!

Filed Under: Life Changes, writing Tagged With: crafts, knitting, Port Gamble, quilting, sewing, women, women's work

I Don’t Know What I’m Doing

October 5, 2011 by admin

Fluffy
Fluffy the Bear Taking Some Sun

My stepdaughter Sarah has a stuffed bear called Fluffy that has been with her since she was a wee tot. Now that she’s 23, Fluffy has definitely seen better days. Over the years her grandmother patched Fluffy’s thinning “skin,” but the poor little bear was about to disintegrate. She mentioned taking it somewhere for repair, and I volunteered to give Fluffy a makeover. I’ve been documenting the process by taking photos as I go.

Here’s the problem: I don’t  know what I’m doing.

I grew up sewing, and I even made two prom dresses, so it’s not that I don’t have any skill. But I’ve never repaired a stuffed bear before, and I feel a certain pressure to “do it right” since Sarah’s so fond of the darn thing. First, I couldn’t find any fabric that remotely resembled Fluffy’s original skin, so I went with something totally different: a tan fleece, soft to the touch and a color that’s reasonable for a bear. I’m keeping the original eyes, and a nose and mouth that were part of a previous repair job so that Fluffy can keep its face.

But now I’m sewing around the tail, and the tail itself is problematic. Worse, I need to decide which seams I’ll sew by hand as the bear suit goes on. I don’t want Fluffy to look like Frankenstein, but it would appear that yes, it will probably be the neck seam. Time for some decorative trim to cover it, perhaps?

I’m a writer, so I am used to not knowing what I am doing, but I’ve applied this awareness to the rest of my life as well. I am always winging it in the kitchen, making things up as I go along. I never seem to be able to follow a recipe without saying, “What if I replaced that ingredient with this one?” And God knows, when I became a stepmother to two kids in their senior year in high school, I definitely Did Not Know What I Was Doing. I consulted all my friends who had children of that age to get input and advice, but they just laughed at me. “We don’t know what we’re doing, either,” they said.

Fluffy in the Bath
Fluffy Getting the Spa Treatment

So I’m used to exploring the limits of my competence. Still, the bear has me bumfuzzled. I’ll git ‘er done, mainly because I’m too stubborn to give up, but I am most uncomfortable with this level of Not Knowing What I’m Doing. In this case, someone else’s feelings are at stake!

Fluffy's Friends
I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends

October feels like the month of I Don’t Know What I’m Doing. Next month I will start a new novel while bringing The Foreign Language of Friends to the public. I never know what I’m doing when I start a new story, and though I have worked to find an audience for my novel, one never knows what will sell or not. In the meantime, I need to figure out how to finish this poor little bear…when I don’t know what I’m doing.

I’d love to hear other stories about when you’ve been in the position of “I Don’t Know What I’m Doing.” I guess I’d love to feel like I’m not alone!

Fluffy 2
Still in Recovery, But Making Progress

 

 

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: books, Foreign Language of Friends, sewing, stuffed bear, writing

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