Original

Posted in Mission statement by Climbing Vine Clothing

“An original idea? That can’t be too hard. The library must be full of them.” Stephen Fry

Anyone else out there a fan of Stephen Fry?
Jeeves and Wooster?
P.G. Wodehouse?

This isn’t a blog about British comedy or I would elaborate. I just found his quote to be hilarious. I have been thinking a lot about what it means to be original so I had to go to an online library to find an original quote about being original. Turns out, there are a lot of people thinking about this same question. Is there a genuinely original thought out there, or is there nothing new under the sun?

And why this need to be original? Why do we want to be unique? To be the first person to think of something whether it be an idea, a product, or just a pithy quote. Do we want to make money, be famous, or just stand out in some way? Or is it something deeper? You read about those people who had just the right idea with the right circumstances at the right time to create something original. An overnight success. Wouldn’t it be nice?

But it is never that simple. There really is nothing new under the sun. We are all building on someone else’s creations, all the way back to the original Creator. I have this conversation with my boys all the time-

“Who made you?”

“God.”

“What else did God make?”

“God made all things.”

Pretty straight forward, right? But then they get confused. I have overheard arguments such as this:

“You better not rip the coloring book, ’cause God made it. ”

“Nuh uh, God didn’t make it, Walmart did.”

Then in sails the wise mother to sort it all out. Of course they are both right. God didn’t actually make the coloring book, but He made everything that made the coloring book. So we go back to the origins and we make a game out of it-

“Who made the people that made the coloring book?”

“Who made the trees to make the paper that made the coloring book?”

“Who made the wax for the crayons to color the coloring book?”

Then I have to pause to try to remember where wax comes from and we end up doing an hour of Google searches on different kinds, from ear wax to candle wax, ending with a Youtube documentary on Crayola. That is what homeschool looks like around here some days.

All that to say, I believe we are made in God’s image. He is the great Original, the great Creator. We want to be like him in our feeble attempts to create and our innate longings for originality. But the question I think I often ignore is not who made us and everything, but why?

The sing-song answer on my boys lips is of course, “For his own glory”, but what a statement!

If he creates for his own glory, then we, made in his image, get to create for our own glory? Ah, there is the rub and the great temptation. We want to glorify ourselves by claiming gifts from God as our own. God is the only one who has the right to glorify himself, since He is the only true originator. But he shares it with us, folks. He shares it with us, for his own glory.

16Jul2013

Little House in the Projects

Posted in Laura Ingalls Wilder by Climbing Vine Clothing

For most of my life, I have felt like I was born in the wrong century. I tend to romanticize this country as it was about 150 years ago- the pioneer spirit, the independence, the wild, open spaces to explore, and the hard working, ‘get it done’ attitude of those early settlers.

I blame Laura Ingalls Wilder for this romantic view of things. I am mildly obsessed with her books, and she is known around our house as just ‘Laura’. I can see my boys in a few years, rolling their eyes, and thinking to themselves, ”There goes mom, talking about Laura again.” But seriously, pick up any of her books and then try to say that these were not extraordinary people.

And when is the last time you read Farmer Boy, the book about Laura’s husband Almanzo? I always longed to live on a farm like that. They quite literally made everything they had from scratch. They raised sheep and Almanzo (at age eight, I might add) had to help wrestle them into the creek to wash and then sheer them. Once the wool was stored, they collected nuts in the fall and stood over a huge cauldron of them, boiling some kind of dye, which would turn the wool grey. Then, naturally, Mother would simply spin and weave the wool into the finest cloth. And then finally she would make the clothes. Talk about cutting out the middle man. No last minute trips to Walmart for second rate goods. Wouldn’t you want to live in such a self-sufficient way? Anyone? Am I crazy? And don’t forget, they ate what seemed to be a Thanksgiving feast every day of the year.

I know a farm like theirs was a rarity. They turned a good profit on their crops every year, unlike Laura’s Pa who hardly ever had a good harvest. But the Ingalls family was happy with so little. living in a one roomed shanty on the prairie somewhere. I know Pa Ingalls was an amazing man, but the older I get, the more amazed I am at Ma. She wasn’t always thrilled about moving west again, but she trusted her husband and made the best of things. She made their little dirt-floored sod house elegant with little china figurines and crisp muslin curtains at the windows.

We live in a tiny house- huge by Laura Ingalls standards, in a not-so-nice neighborhood. We have no wide open spaces out our front door- in fact, there are days when I just won’t go out my front door. We have a tiny little garden that produces some food, but thank goodness we don’t have to survive the winter on its yield. We even have a couple of chickens (that belong to the neighbors) who wander through the yard and deposit the occasional egg. And as I sit on my comfy couch, in my air conditioned living room, sewing dainty garments by hand I look around at my ‘little house in the projects’ and I tell myself I could hack it as a pioneer.

Sometimes as I sew, I listen to audio books. This week’s book is Little Town on the Prairie, and this passage brought me up short.

They were making Mary’s best winter dress. In the hot room, with the sun blazing on the thin board walls and roof, the lap fulls of wool cashmere almost smothered them. Ma had measured Mary, and cut the patterns,and cut and basted the dress lining, Then when she tried the lining on Mary she had to make changes all along the seams. Laura had never before known that Ma hated sewing. Her gentle face did not show it now, and her voice was never exasperated. But her patience was so tight around her mouth that Laura knew she hated sewing as much as Laura did.

When Ma had stitched the seams of Mary’s dresses, Laura sewed the whalebone stays onto the underarm seams. She took great pains to sew them evenly without making the tiniest wrinkle in the seams, so that it would fit smoothly on the outside. This was such anxious work that it made the back of her neck ache.

Now the basque of Mary’s best dress was ready to try on for the last time.

“Oh, Mary, it’s beautiful, Laura told her.”And the sleeves look absolutely skin tight to the elbows.”

“They are,” Mary said. “I don’t know if I can button—”

Laura went around in front. “Hold your breath, Mary,” she advised anxiously.

“It’s too tight,” Ma said in despair. Some of the buttons strained in the buttonholes, some could not be buttoned at all.

“Don’t breathe, Mary! Don’t breathe!” Laura said frantically, and quickly she unbuttoned the straining buttons. “Oh, how ever did I make such a mistake,” Ma said.

“Laura had a sudden thought. “It’s Mary’s corsets! It must be.” It was so. When Mary held her breath again and Laura pulled tight the corset strings, the bodice buttoned, and it fitted beautifully.

Umm, wearing whale bones and corsets in the blazing hot sun? And on the next page, Pa comes in to tell them that the blackbirds ate all the corn crop. So they make the best of it and have blackbird pie for dinner. Talk about when life gives you lemons… Perhaps I’ll just take the moral of the story and leave the circumstances to the pioneers.

15Jul2013

Inspiration

Posted in Mission statement by Climbing Vine Clothing

Our local library is itty bitty. It is so small that I hardly ever take the time to browse the few shelves they have. I usually just stop for a quick run in, to pick up the books I have ordered online from the huge downtown library where I hate going because there is never any parking. Anyways….

All that to say, I can’t remember what led me to pick up a copy of Alabama Stitch Book at our itty bitty library that fateful day. I think it caught my eye because the binding was bright red (my favorite color) and it was a book about stitching in the cookbook section(two of my favorite things). Whatever the reason, I checked it out and as I flipped through the down home recipes and unique sewing projects, I fell in love.

It was written by a woman named Natalie Chanin who started a cottage industry in her Alabama home town selling hand made clothing for women out of cotton jersey. You know, the stuff they make tee shirts out of? I have sewn with a lot of fabrics, but I never thought to use jersey. I never thought you could make anything nice out of t-shirt material, but this woman was creating art work with it. And every stitch of it by hand.

I loved the colors she chose, the patterns she used, the time tested sewing methods she learned from her grandmother, and her old fashioned, waste not, want not approach to crafting. But her products are hardly old fashioned. They are like nothing I have ever seen.

I bought my first yard of cotton jersey shortly after that, the hubby bought me her other two books for Christmas, and I have hardly worked on any other project since. Some of her methods I have had a hard time getting used to. I mean, she doesn’t hem anything for goodness sake. What would my mother say? Her clothing is an interesting mix of simple and elaborate, rustic and elegant, but I love it because she gives you all her patterns, all her methods, and lets you make it yourself if you want. And since her ready made pieces are not exactly affordable for me at this point in my life, that is what I started to do.

One problem, of course. All this takes time. Lots of it. And I struggle with feeling guilty for spending hours and hours on a dress just for myself. Then my sister had a baby girl. I had plenty of scraps around, and a nice used t-shirt is just the right size for a baby dress. I sized down the patterns and stencils and finished the dress in a drastically shorter amount of time. An idea was born, and I am going with it. I don’t know where it will take me, but here are a few more dresses I posted on Etsy yesterday.

Oh, and Natalie Chanin is coming to town next week. I am going to try to meet her.

An even dozen

Sometimes silence is important. That was one of the first things I learned from my husband when we met in France over fourteen years ago. He loves silence. In fact, as some people I know can attest, we spent the first week of our acquaintance in almost total silence, staring at each other like those twitterpated creatures in Bambi. We were married two years later, twelve years ago next week.
For eight of those twelve years we have been parents. During those eight years we have been away from our kids, as a couple, for one night. And that one night was the memorable episode when my youngest sister, who had kindly assented to watch our boys, sent a subtle text asking how much bedding the washing machine could hold. Turns out, the boys had eaten a whole jar of strawberry flavored acidophilus tablets. If you don’t know what acidophilus tablets are, let’s just say they promote healthy digestion.
Despite that story, another of my sisters offered to watch the boys this weekend so we could get away for a night. She just sent a picture of my youngest with a big bloody bump on his forehead, subtitled “off to a great start.” God bless my sisters.
We are only twenty minutes from home, staying in a glorified camping spot with a screened in patio, a small trailer, a beautiful river view, and best of all, silence. We have four crazy boys. We live in a tiny house. Sometimes silence is important.
Sometimes it is important to sit and contemplate twelve years of marriage without a grubby little hand pulling on your thumb and telling you to come see where he peed on the floor. Sometimes it is important to cook a fabulous meal without fast-growing boys whining in your ear that if dinner isn’t ready soon, they are going to starve to death right before your eyes.

Sometimes it is important to paddle down a river at sunset without worrying that your accident prone child is going to tumble overboard. And it is sweet to be able to wake up with the sun on the water and thank God for a chance to be still and number your blessings, so you can go back to them with a willing and cheerful heart.

12Jul2013

Handmade? Pourquoi?

Posted in Mission statement by Climbing Vine Clothing

As yesterday’s post indicated, I have been sewing for a while now. I learned to operate a sewing machine around age eleven, and while I enjoyed fiddling around with it, I did a lot more hand sewing in those early years. I went through a long cross stitch phase, and much of my free time in high school was spent making little exes on fabric. If that confession makes you think I must have been a lot of fun in high school, you may be thinking wrong.

I never knew what to do with the finished products, so my mother was usually the recipient. Like all good mothers, she still has many of them stuck on her walls. The last cross stitch I attempted was some floofy ice fairy or something, which I got well into before I realized that stitching a white ice fairy on white fabric was boring me to death! And what was I going to do with it if I ever finished? I needed to find something more useful to do. So I went back to the sewing machine, and started making clothes for myself and eventually quilts. The practical side of me was satisfied. Am I boring you yet?

Fast forward about fifteen years. Picture me married with three little boys, living in a tiny apartment in Memphis. We moved there temporarily to be close to the hubby and his job, and we brought only the bare minimum with us. We had no t.v., no computer, not even books . I had no friends, no car most days, and no sewing machine. And did I mention it was 180 degrees outside everyday? I thought I would go crazy from housebound boredom.

Digging through the few boxes we brought, I found my fabric scraps. I was pondering how I could make use of all the tiny bits of random calico with no sewing machine, when I thought of my grandmother and her tin box of hexagon flowers. She had left the beginnings of that quilt to my mother, who had attempted at various times to finish it without success. I also remembered a conversation my aunts once had about how many depression era women, those women who used every scrap of everything, had similar boxes in their attic. No one ever finished one of those quilts, they laughed. I took it as a personal challenge.

For the three months we lived in Memphis, I did little else but work on that quilt. And over the next three years, I did it sporadically. It is now in it’s final stage. It may be in its final stage for another three years and my aunts might be proved right in the end.

But what I have come to realize is that sewing by hand is the best deterrent I have found to counteract my tendencies to sloppiness, cutting corners, and generally rushing a job, just to say it is done.

I am not a detail oriented person, and zipping an item through a sewing machine usually means more time undoing mistakes because I am not paying attention. Or I just leave the mistakes because who has the time to fix them, and I have to get this sewing machine out of the way so I can get dinner on the table. In short, sewing by hand allows me a quiet corner to sit, relax, and do better work.

It also means my boys won’t crawl under the table, push the pedal on my machine and run my fingers over with the needle. It’s the little things, right?

11Jul2013

Finding a Market

Posted in Hand made gifts by Climbing Vine Clothing

It’s sometime in the early nineties and once again I am pawing my way through the old hope chest my grandpa made for my mom before she got married. It is rickety and broken, made out of some scrap lumber, perhaps not of the highest quality. But grandpa made it with love, and it serves its purpose even though the wobbly hinges threaten to drop the heavy lid on my head.

I am tumbling the neat stacks of scrap fabric my mom keeps in there, which she has patiently refolded for the umpteenth time after one of my forages. I have the urge to make something again.

I come across the quilt I attempted last year. It is so warped and buckled that it will never adorn anyone’s bed. Mom’s advice to keep my seams straight is something to think about next time. Perhaps a smaller project. A little dress? But for whom? My four little sisters aren’t so little anymore. And who am I kidding, no one would actually wear one of my lopsided creations, least of all myself. But I bet a doll would. My mom had been making adorable stuffed rabbits for daughters, nieces and nephews, and I would increase the wardrobe of my sister’s favorite bunny threefold! The tattered pattern came out, as well as a pile of odd shaped pieces of calico. So what if the pattern doesn’t quite fit on the remnants? Just cut a corner here or there. And all these zippers and buttons? Who has the time? I’m sure it will fit without them.

A few days later, I presented my sister with the gift. She was a little confused as to the occasion, little knowing she was a victim of my sporadic urge to create. She was very sweet with her thanks, and immediately went to work adorning her bunny. And it was work. She had to wrestle that poor thing into those clothes, squeezing the chubby stuffed arms into impossibly small sleeves and so on. But I was content. That strange need to make something with my hands was satisfied for the time being.

Twenty years later, that urge to create continues, and I am always searching for a purpose for my goods. I still love little dresses, but giving birth to four boys forces me to look elsewhere for recipients. This little dress is for a much anticipated baby, a baby whose parents thought they would never be able to conceive.

She is one of those gracious surprises from the Lord, given to parents who had given up all hope. It is exciting for me to anticipate her arrival by a little creativity. God, the creator of all life, has generously shared this creative urge with his people. I thank Him for it, and every day, try to sew a straighter seam.

10Jul2013

Breaking ground

Posted in Mission statement by Climbing Vine Clothing

Staring at a blank page can be daunting. So many words. Which to choose? This page has been blank for a few days now and I have resorted to asking my boys what I should write. My oldest boy, all innocence, suggests I tell about how grumpy I was yesterday when I couldn’t figure out all this technological stuff. Man, that boy is starting to pick up on things.

That is as good a place as any to start, I suppose. It is the main reason I have never attempted a blog like this. I don’t do computers well. Oh, and I am no photographer, which it seems is a prerequisite for anyone truly serious about blogging these days. And yet here I am, despite my lack of expertise and sans fancy camera, obeying a nagging in the back of my mind that won’t let up. “Start a blog,” says the nagger. “Just start it and see what happens.”

But what kind of a blog is this? What is Climbing Vine clothing? I am not sure myself yet. It is going to be an organic process, which is great, since it goes along nicely with my garden-esque theme. Climbing Vine Clothing is my itty bitty Etsy shop with two whole items listed for sale and priced very optimistically. A girl can dream, right?

The climbing vine motif carries over into every day life. I pull up a lot of climbing vines in my jungly yard, and am always amazed at their seeming weakness and yet their amazing ability to climb around every obstacle, stretching out curling fingers for necessary supports as they reach for the sun. Some vines strangle and choke, but others cover ugliness with beauty, like the vine that has slowly been obscuring the unsightly barbed wire on our neighbors fence, bearing blossoms and berries along the way. They don’t wait for ideal circumstances before they start their journey. They bloom where they are planted. That is the kind of vine I would like to be.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: