Wine Festival Sewing Botega Preparations - and slow progress on my magnificent denim coat

9 comments

clareartista1.9 K3 months agoPeakD6 min read

I promise I'll get better photos of the botega, now that it's all set up...

...and of my denim coat - it is very near being finished!

Hi, dearest Needleworking Friends and Hive Beloveds!

Last night was the first Vinalia evening: in one day a great part of the medieval quarter was transformed with wee lights, music stages, pop-up shops and bars and restaurants, and a massive crowd of folks - who come from all over the country and abroad, for this big annual wine festival. PLUS this year we have the epic rites - the Riti Settennali - which are also in August; this too brings even more folks from all over the world, coming back to their roots to celebrate this most important 7-yearly religious event.

In the throng of all this, I prepared my botega with paintings and all my finished garments from the past year. It feels very good to have a 'displaying' room in the house - partly because it makes the room neat and beautiful, and also to reflect on what I've achieved, what I can improve on, and where I want to ultimately go with my sewing.

Being a Virgo and very self-critical of my creativity at the best of times, it took me a lot of mental and emotional effort to get the doors open to my 'atelier': also, unlike in years past, I don't live under commercial law so much (I live in Gift - see my website for more information on what this means) and so don't have the urge to hook folks in, to advertise or even signpost. It feels good just being there, and waiting to see if anyone pops by. Folks know that I live here, and that I usually have something on - art or a cultural event of some type - during Vinalia, and so a few wandered by and came in to look around...

I am very critical of myself in photos, yuck! But I adore this dress - a 50c stall find, as ever - it got some fun reactions... like the suore/ nuns smiling at me, as they are dressed very similarly - and my telling the old men who were commenting on it, that the nuns were copying my style, hehehe!

The Via Dietro Gli Orti is quite far from the main thrum of the wine festival, all the same, so I can offer a safe haven from the intensity of the packed streets above. I was out and about with my dear friend Stefania before opening, enjoying vino and snacks from the Cantina Morone. So beautiful to sit, dressed up, at a beautifully dressed table, with fairy lights and branches all around, where usually I'm just plodding up the Via Roma to the two sisters' shop for my daily groceries! Improvvisamente there's a choice of 5 places to eat, all lining the steep cobbles, and a ton of folk pouring in... Stella, one of the wee dogs who live there day in and day out, is a bit confused about so many things going on in her street.

So amongst all this celebration and busy-ness, I was sewing away happily, getting as many garments ready as I could for the 'un-shop' :-D And as I sat through the first evening, way past my usual bedtime, I worked along the collar, upsetting my old Brother sewing machine quite significantly, I believe... Eventually realising that the combination of cheap thread and heavy layers of denim just wasn't marrying. I did a load of hand-sewing instead, and guided the machine by hand over the places where it could get the needle through the textile. Maybe it is time to replace a needle also?

another successful coffeeshop session, working on details for the coat cuffs...

I must admit that as confident and positive as I set out with this second reconstructed denim coat, it feels quite hard work indeed to finish it; it sat on the mannequin for a few days with nothing happening, because it feels too nerve-racking to embark on the final structuring - eek! Now that the collar is on (fuelled by two glasses of magnificent Guardia wines!) I am more sure of taking the sleeves in. I do have this neurosis of wondering whether or not my spontaneous technique is really a good idea, and whether or not it might be better to just learn it the conventional way.

some tucks in the sleeves for the elbows...

Talking with my dear friend though, I recognise that it's not the freestyle approach that is the problem - more that the permitting of one's neuroses to lead is something that will always end up in a hesitant hand. It is so good to talk these things through, instead of just letting them fester! Recognising where we are letting the worry lead the way, helps shift the focus to What do I really want to make here??! - which usually stimulates a more conscious manifestation of solution.

This week, as the wine festival progresses and preparation for the Riti have all the townsfolk buzzing in anticipation, I will spend a good amount of time focussing on the solution: what do I want to 'achieve' in my sewing - or am I willing to let it grow organically, as Nature intended... Or am I going to go full immersion into eccentric expressions in cloth? Will I end up in the wild countryside, sewing epic natural garments pieced together from fabulous scraps and things foraged in 50c stalls - can I let myself go enough for that to happen?? I need to free up how I'm thinking about sewing a bit, as it is really silly how I'm clogging my imagination up with all kinds of irrelevant worrisomenesses.