one of two skirts that I reconstructed/ transformed this week: adding new fabric to a favourite-but-waaaayyyy-too-short miniskirt!

Dearest Needlework Community

...and the second of these two skirts

This week my work has been inundated with new influence, with new inspiration and with new materials. Just as well that I did a massive clean-up of my work space (and all the other spaces around the house that are involved actively in my creative process!) - there are at least 5 new large sacks of clothing that I am sorting through, handwashing, pinning out in the fresh air to dry, and sorting into piles for potential new magical clothes...

evening-out the previous hem of the skirts; they were kind of double-sided, multiple-adjustable garments - just a tad on the revealing side!

It is very moving, working with some of the donations I've received lately. In this part of Italy, there isn't an efficient system (it could be argued that there is no system at all) for gifting clothing - no charity pick-ups or council recycle bin or donations centre. Like with the famous 50c stall, which is also illustrative of the little interest here for vintage and old garments, the fact of there being no obvious place to give away clothes, is a great boon for myself as a re-maker of clothing.

because of their great flexibility of width, the skirts had very long hems and joining seams!

Part of accepting new garments is the sorting and washing. As you may know already, I do not have a mains electrical current at my home, so my washing machine is no longer functional. This means that each and every garment must be passed through a bucket or basin - or the bath - and soaked, scrubbed, shoogled around a bit and then rinsed and wrung out, before being pegged onto the washing lines in front of my balconies. It is a humbling process; no room for impatience or ego, forcing or hurrying: this is simply The Good Work, and it has to be done, before the fun can be had of making new things.

I never had a washing machine until my thirties: I lived nomadically and freely, often barefoot and sometimes without a conventional house - I didn't own enough clothing to merit a machine, to start with. It didn't fit with having to move home each time on public transport: why have a big appliance that one would have to leave, when one is moving regularly? And now having exchanged the benefit of mains electric, for the immense freedom of peace of mind, time, money and resources that I'd ratehr not have syphoned off to the great corporations... I can settle back into the natural rhythms of how things are meant to be, rather than how the system tells us they 'should'.

the finished - refurbished - skirts... very pleased with these...

This allows me to listen and feel, respond in right timing, feel aligned and in synchrony with things around me. Particularly during the activities that previously I would've classes as 'chores', 'tasks' or at best 'not my favourite job'. Now I relish the moments spent with hands in water, scrubbing gently, getting to know the garments. Because of using natural light rather than (harsh!) electric bulbs, I am happily rising with the dawn and the birds singing in joy at a new day. I am up and about when most other folks are still sound asleep, pottering around and getting a lot done - when previously I might well have been in bed another 2 or more hours, and been rushing to get ready for busying about the day - feeling like half the day was gone already (it was!)... Now I feel industrious in a non-mechanical way: like I'm getting a lot done, feeling fitter, being more in tune with my biorhythms and the cosmic waves...

Washing before working on things might not even be necessary: often garments come to me prewashed, but are loaded with perfumes and other folks' vibes. It takes a certain level of rinsing, airing and changing the energy of a piece of clothing, before it can be brought into the creative cycle. Similar to making a home our own, making clothing our own is essential, before any real transformation can be made - before the things can be released from who they belonged to, how they were worn, and where they travelled to and from. Bringing them into my haven, they have to be cleansed first, and I have to get to know and trust them even, so that I can be connected with them before I work.

I've been slowly and methodically cleaning two sets of garments in particular this past month, from friends who have passed away. This is a huge, moving, poewrful meditation. I pray for the friends' peace, for their release, for their riches being passed on to family and friends, for their inheritance coming to fruition in every sense. I give thanks for the gifts that I may be honoured to use creatively. I let go of emotions and fears, superstition and neuroses, around touching 'dead peoples' clothes'. And I allow the fabrics to transmit what they need to and want to. Our second skin is a vitally-charged membrane, and it should be treated with the utmost respect and attention.

ONE of the many piles, waiting to be handwashed

my trusty eco washing liquid

I have many feelings around both friends' garments, as well as around other fabrics that I have been sewing with recently from deceased close-ones. So much of someone passing over is - if not fully taboo - simply not discussed, at least if we don't have a closeknit family, a spouse, a spiritual brother or sister - or if we don't have a habit or practise of talking out our felt world. My worklife has been a lot about expressing the subtle world; communicating between realms and dimensions, vibrations and realities. This felt hard to do for decades, but now it feels more natural and timely to speak openly about what is transmitted from the world - through my sentient aliveness - into expression. Even if there are very few people talking openly about the subtle realities underlying the (harsh!!) surface one, these are times in which we are starting to reveal more and to occult less.

One of the strongest senses I get from the clothing of people that I knew (before they passed), is of presence, care, love: a person's care not just of their own superficial 'appearance', but a more multi-levelled awareness of the immense beauty of how they flow in the world. A sense of their being wholesome and powerfully unique, and their clothing being a kind of celebration of their spirit-in-body. (A whole sense of something is so much more than a rationalised sense, and has to be expressed through the inimitable voice of one who is experiencing.) We all have a sense of this when a person is alive - but we may not ever see their clothes again once they are no longer inside of them; so where does all that force of identity, the meaningfulness of their care and attention, go?

Of course it dissipates, I know. It is 'lost' and cannot be regained by someone else wearing the clothing. But I feel that the essence of a person's creative expression can be co-created with, interwoven anew, and brought forward just as surely as the food left in their house can be used, or their finances can be resolved. My work in remaking clothing is very much about how this essence is rewoven: how the subtle inheritance can be harvested rather than diffused, and stitched into something beautiful and even great.

This aspect of Living In Gift - the way everything and everyone is interconnected - is dawning on me differently these days, as I wash dear Karen's colourful dresses, pile up dear Sergio's fine jackets, and play with a glorious purple-grey-green tartan of dearest Margaret's. Some of these people's left clothing might meet and 'copulate' and bring forth new pieces, with myself as the conductor. We are all connected: anything that brings us back to awareness about this, is a potent medicine.

The process itself is a cathartic one: not for me myself, as much as it is for myself in the fabric of all things: I am sewing the cosmos back together, one treasured/ treasurable item at a time. My lifework is a celebration of all of our colourful vitality, intimate choices, and unexpressed potential - mixing and collaborating and playing in joy. I love this work all the more than I loved painting for 35+ years!

The softness of everything, the pliability of the fibres and seams, the play-full-ness of it all, the interconnectivity - it thrills and inspires me with the immense possibility - reminding me that a major aspect of life is to play, to experiment, to connect and to celebrate.

LoVe!

www.claregaiasophia.com