Viva La Liberty, my oversew entry, is made from a collection of shirts. The outfit is a memory palace of fabrics and stories of treasured items.

My family is big on narrative and epic stories.  Objects are given a history, to be recalled should anyone ask.  Locations on a road trip trigger stories of "The time when.."  Everything becoming a part of an intricate memory palace.  So it is natural that the pieces in Viva La Liberty have their own stories too.

This is the story of the pieces in Viva La Liberty.

A collection of Liberty shirts - 9 in total.  While most of the shirts were found in thrift shops, two were made by family members.  These shirts are a tangible evidence of women expressing themselves over the years through their craft and selection of fabrics.

Each shirt is carefully disassembled allowing the fabric to be reused and re-celebrated.  The seams, collars and cuffs are removed before being washed and pressed flat.  The tradition  of disassembling to wash, or reuse, is common with revered garments, such as kimono.
 The oldest shirt belonged to my Great Aunt. The handsewn name tag is testament that it was one of her favourites as it was packed with her when she moved to a nursing home.  During the disassembly of this shirt, the fabric proved too frail for this project. Only the label has been used in the oversewn garments.  The remainder of the fabric has been put aside for use in a creation more suited to it’s delicate state.

A Liberty skirt - This was originally a kit-set for the enthusiastic, but less confident home-sewer.  It came with shirred edging, buttonholes and buttons allowing the discerning woman to make their very own skirt, with minimal effort.
This skirt was given to me by my godmother after years of use.  My love of sewing has always been encouraged by family, though acts of generosity, such as this.  Given a tradition of frugality and love of fabric, this skirt could only be treasured and passed on.  Part of this garment’s story is told through patches concealing buttons that were sewn and resewn, as well as darker areas that were hidden in the deep hems of the original skirt.
A Liberty toddler’s dress - This small dress was passed to me by an Aunt because she thought I would treasure the fabric and “could do something with it”.  It had obviously been sewn at home, with loving hands, and was meant for a child who would only fit it for a brief moment.  Dresses like this illustrates how women have shown love by wrapping their children in the most precious fabrics.

A white linen shirt made by myself in 1993, in my earlier years of home-sewing. This shirt featured everything conformist about the 90’s from paua shell buttons, to copious amounts of billowing white linen. This shirt had been worn by myself, passed to my mother for wearing and then catalogued with those items “too good to throw out” at the back of every wardrobe.  Fortunately, the hand sewn name tag, saw the shirt to returned to me and reinvented in this outfit.  I took great delight in being able to rework my own sewing, as each piece of the shirt was unpicked, pockets removed and buttons put aside.  The newly created garments are both different from and reflective of, the original piece.

 
It is all about the little moments.  The calendar has turned, the decorations are coming out and we are counting down to Christmas.  We have a nightly tradition of advent calendar and Christmas stories before bed.  The candle is new for us.  We pop up between stories to check how far it has burnt, with a little line for each day. We take it in turns to blow it out.

Oh, we have so many Christmas stories, that I really must share them at some point.  Stories that warm the heart, talk of a certain Saint Nicholas (anyone remember him in all the rush?) and some that have me so misty eyed I find them hard to finish.  We sit on the couch, huddled, necks craning to see pictures and we read.

It is nice to be spending the time together.  As we hear of family members battling with illnesses and odds, the lists of perfectly co-ordinated decorations fall away, and we remember it really is a privilege to spend these moments together.

There is a growing collection of mismatched cups on my windowsill.  I love the colours, just a little murky and so cheerful.  They are waiting for me to get started on giving them new life. 

You see, each one is a little broken.  Some chips are obvious, some cracks only show up when the cup is full of hot water.  I could call it perfectionism, but really it's a matter of safety.  Once when catching my mother throwing out a china cup, she explained that chipped wine glasses are fine, decadent even, but anything broken, holding a hot drink, is just dangerous.

Rather than waiting to fill these teacups with wine, ever the engineer, I'm on the look out for a ceramic drill bit.  I believe these will make a great collection of bulb planters.  I can gaze again at the cheerful colours while sitting around a pot of tea with good company.

My apologies for the lack of recent posts.  My work hours have unexpectedly increased and as a family we are still finding our feet in the shifting sands of new routines.  The crafting adventures continue.  They are as essential as breathing, yet the writing is taking a back seat.

By far my favorite is the one below.  I saw it on my last day.

As I was trying to frame the picture, I saw the couple below.   I love that the bride's dress matches the writing perfectly. The photographer and couple are so busy getting the right shot with the Eiffel tower behind them, that they haven't stopped to look at what is written above them.

This sea of red greeted me through the Monday morning fog.  One kid dropped off to school, one hanging out with Mum, and one Mum home from travels.  It was a nice landing back into the minutiae of home-life and the onset of Winter.

When I saw the lady with leaf blower, I rushed home for the camera to capture it all.  Looking at the photos now makes me think of "The Red Tree" by  Shaun Tan.  A somewhat melancholic tale with a hopeful note.  I even found a golden tree glowing in the distance.

Sometimes the littlest things can be deflating.  In this case I was all set to plough through some desperately needed winter sewing.  At least I thought I was all set, until I ran out of fabric the striped fabric above. Had I though about it, I would have cut with more care. It was only a small thing, but the wind was truly ripped from my sails and I just needed some time to think.

This dress was my first commission piece and I was so determined that it be perfect.  In the scheme of things, the fact that the orange sleeves are not a true match to the striped bodice does not matter, but in my mine it was hard to let go.

So finally, we have the dress, stitched and ready to go to its new home.  I look forward to catching glimpses of it around town and thinking that really Little Miss Miss-Matched is just right.