Detours

I have been thinking about detours. Not the kind of detour where you are directed off the highway onto a country road that will add minutes to your journey. No, the detour that upends your well-planned day when a too-good-to-pass-up project with a short timeline comes your way.

As previously mentioned in various posts, I have several quilts (ok, 5 or 6) waiting to be made. The patterns and fabrics are stacked in my sewing room closet in the order I hope to complete them. I honestly thought I would get at least 2 of those quilts made in the second half of 2021.

Sit back, grab a drink and allow me to take you on the journey of my sewing detours — some fun, some challenging and always a learning experience.

For several years I have been wanting to reorganize my sewing room. I would wander through Pinterest looking for ideas. In late Spring, I came upon a great storage unit/cutting table that would be the answer. It all begins with 3 IKEA units.

My husband, Rick, has a colleague, Robert Irwin, whose hobby is carpentry. I contacted him to ask if he could build this storage unit/cutting table. After a couple conversations it was a go.

I also had been looking for a new sewing cabinet for years. They were either too expensive, the configuration wrong for my needs or simply would not fit the available space. Finally, I received an ad for the perfect sewing cabinet! And shipping was FREE.

I gifted my old cutting table and sewing cabinet to McKenna. I taught McKenna to sew a few years ago. I always encourage young people to continue to learn to sew, knit, crochet, etc.

The cabinet arrived. Rick put it together. Robert delivered the storage unit/cutting table. It was everything I hoped for and more. My sewing room is now a more functional space.

All the cleaning, decluttering and disposing of items in the sewing room prohibited it from being use for its intended purposes for about 10 days, but the result was well worth that detour.

In May, Anne Graves, a colleague, contacted me about making her daughter’s wedding dress. I do not sew much apparel, and I had always worried a wedding dress would be too complicated and a major time commitment.

Autumn sent me a sketch and pictures of what she wanted before we met. I agreed to make the dress if I could find a pattern that could be adapted. I did find one where I could use the bodice design and add a full skirt. Having a very reasonable timeline — the wedding was a year away — and a pattern, I committed to making the dress.

We made fabric decisions of white satin and chiffon in early June. To avoid getting anxious I told myself, repeatedly, that I was making a white evening gown. I have experience constructing evening wear.

I worked on the dress on weekends. It is almost done as of late-December. We have decided to add some accessories — a belt with pearls — after the first of the year.

While I had some anxiety over making such an important garment at the beginning of the project, I am honored that Anne and Autumn trusted me. An uncomfortable (at times) detour, but in a year that I promised myself to be more confident, it was an exciting and pleasurable detour.

An interesting fact few know about me is that I don’t have a competitive bone in my body. I never played competitive sports. I do not enjoy the pettiness people display when playing games. From a young age I have known there are things that some people do better than I; I am OK with that.

When my quilting friends started telling me I should enter my A Golden Moment quilt in a show, I didn’t pay attention. But to step out of my comfort zone I decided this was the year to enter it in the Plano Quilt Show. 

The process of entering a quilt in a show is very involved and at one point I thought, “this is too much trouble, and I don’t care.” Not the attitude I want to claim so I proceeded with completing the application, get the required picture taken of the quilt and mailing it in before the deadline.

After a few weeks I received notice that my quilt was accepted but then I needed to remove the binding so I could sew in a sleeve on the top-back edge and re-sew the binding. This is a show requirement in order to properly hang the quilt.

I delivered the quilt early one morning the week of the October show. I made plans to attend the pre-show with Rick and dear friend Cammy Gaston. I could not attend the public show because Rick and I were going to Charlotte, N.C., to visit our son, Ross.

On the evening of the pre-show, Cammy met us at the Plano Event Center, and we nonchalantly walked up and down the aisles viewing the beautiful quilts. Many were amazing masterpieces. We came upon my quilt with a ribbon hanging from it — honorable mention.

I was surprised and appreciative. It was interesting to see what the judge liked and did not like. It is subjective after all. I do not know if I will ever participate in another show. I can’t imagine thinking from the beginning of constructing a quilt that it is show worthy.

This detour also took me out of my comfort zone and allowed me to view quilts from a different lens. Furthermore, a big THANK YOU to Julie and Curt Johnson for retrieving my quilt from the show. Julie always makes me feel as though I can attack the next creative adventure with ease.  

I have a handful of friends from my days of teaching high school that I stay in touch with regularly. Carrie Skeen is one. Gary Skeen, Carrie’s father, owned Hoops Machine and Welding Shop for 39 years. The shop closed and the property sold just months before his passing in April.

Shortly, after Gary’s death, Carrie came to me with an idea. She wanted to take Gary’s work shirts and his plaid shirts and make pillows for her sisters, nieces and step-mother. Additionally, she wanted to take Gary’s golf shirts from the many courses he had visited and make a pillow for her brother-in-law. Carrie explained to me that the yellow plaid shirt was one of their favorites when Gary wore it and asked if could put a yellow heart in the middle of one side of the pillow.

There was no way I could have said no to this request. I love taking something and making it into a treasure. The sewing of the pieces would not be time consuming, I just needed to have a plan on how big the pillows would be, how wide the strips of plaid shirting needed to be and how to make the puzzle pieces of the golf shirts.

Carrie wanted to give the pillows as Christmas presents so all the organization and cutting was done in mid-October and pillows were completed by early December. This detour made it possible to honor a special Dad of a special friend.

Each year at Ursuline Academy of Dallas, (where Rick teaches math) each department chooses a theme for Halloween costumes. Often when people know you can sew, you get volunteered to make things you would rather not. This year’s Math Department theme was Toy Story. My husband and a colleague would make up Slinky the dog. I love Toy Story and Slinky is my favorite character so how could I say no?

I found a YouTube video for a child’s costume. I made the necessary size conversions, bought fabric and ordered a giant Slinky from Amazon.  

The costume came together quickly, until the large pink plastic Slinky had to be covered in yards of gray fabric tubing to achieve a metallic look. The process of covering the Slinky took 5 hours. Not necessarily how I wanted to spend a Saturday, but I took one for the team.  

The costumes were adorable, and they won first prize for group costume. This detour reminded me of making Ross’ Halloween costumes. There were some jewels among those costumes.

I even caused a detour as I wanted to make a few things for Ross’ new home in Charlotte. One of those was a fun Turkey pillow. I had all the supplies for the pillow except the background fabric and pillow form. I picked those up on my way home from work one afternoon and made the pillow the following Saturday so I could get it in the mail on November 1.  I hope to make one of these Turkey pillows for myself.

Then Ross caused a detour when he visited us the week before Thanksgiving and asked about his Christmas stocking. I was not going to send it back with him. I wanted to hang it in our home. So instead, I made he and his girlfriend, Chelsie, stockings while I was making one for the grandchild of a Charleston, S.C., friend. Ross was able to take the new stockings back with him.

2021 is coming to an end. While I have not accomplished all the projects I intended to, I am glad I took the detours I did. I stepped out of my comfort zone on several occasions, added meaningful décor to some households and made the dress of Autumn’s dreams that will allow her to feel as special as she should on her wedding day.

Sewing is cheaper than therapy.

Merry Christmas.