spring fever

My sewing skills waver somewhere between "astonishingly poor" and "pathetic." I shouldn't be so surprised, since I've had at least sixteen years in which to absorb the causal relationship between practice and improvement. I'm a good knitter because I knit almost every day; I've become a better weaver since working in a weaving studio four days a week; I'm a poor seamstress because I sew sporadically, never for more than a couple of weeks at a stretch, and with years passing between each flirtation with my mother's sewing machine. Each single-minded jag only adds to the pile of valiant attempts at skirts and dresses in varying stages of (in)completion tucked away in a drawer in Austin, awaiting either an extended stay at home or my acquisition of a sewing machine– and apartment– of my own. (Both scenarios look, for now, equally unlikely.) Lacking access to my jumble of accumulated fabric and patterns, this year's bout of spring sewing fever sent me rummaging through the weavery's fabric closet in search of inspiration– preferably for something small, easy, and inconsequential.

Straight seams are still almost beyond my abilities, but I figure they're a good place to start practicing. So I made some napkins out of an old curtain. The fabric is a bit twee and probably not very absorbent; the seams meander over the hems, which form gently undulating waves; the mitered corners are definitively trapezoidal. I'm proud of them, and determined to keep sewing until I improve... or run out of steam.