look what i made!

My current addictions (which include some obsessive compulsive like behaviours. I’m a little afraid for myself):

• sewing
• that damn snake game on the boyfriend’s mobile
• chocolate
• dabo ferfer

I’ve never sewn before. Well, I’ve never had a sewing project. On the odd occasion I attempted to reattach a button but without success. I learned to sew through osmosis actually. You’re thinking from my mother. But you’d be wrong.

It was a roommate who sewed for a living. We always had an odd collection of wedding dresses around (I was always tempted to try one on…the first and last time I’d ever wear a proper wedding dress…but never did) because she did the beadwork at all hours of the night. So while I was watching tv, reading, making dinner she was sewing. The two years I lived with her, I never got a lesson. It always seemed like a mysterious process to me. A process that I knew could change people. This knowledge was passed to me from my mom. She became a different person once the sewing basket came out from the closet. She always asked me to get it for her. It was a very 70’s olive green colour with a soft cushiony bit under the lid where all the pins were stuck. There were trays loaded with thread and different coloured buttons so much so it couldn’t close properly. She could reattach buttons although with the odd frustrated sigh. If the sewing machine had to come out, it was best to leave the room and play outside. Generally a project never got finished because it ended with screams of “oh! this STU-pid machine!” I still don’t know if it was the machine or the user but for me the act of sewing was forever combined with an aura of fear and mystery that I thought best to leave alone.

So why start sewing now, you ask? Boredom is a great motivator. Not too long ago, I tried to fulfill my wifely duty by fixing one of the boyfriend’s shirts and it wasn’t that painful. I’ve wanted to make odd looking/disfigured dolls since seeing them at a craft fair in Toronto last winter and now I have plenty of time on my hands and my hands want to be busy. One trip to Merkato was all it took to acquire the necessities.

for the love is proud to present the newly formed “Imperfections” label (slogan: cause who’s perfect?) with malformed dolls of various sizes, colours, shapes and limbs.

I think the roommate would be proud.