I Flunked Apron, So Why Do I Sew?

I am just about to go upstairs to “The Studio,” our combined painting and sewing room, to work on my third version of a classic tailored shirt. November 3, 2015 will mark the second anniversary of my return to the sewing machine since the disastrous mess of an apron I “made” in my eighth grade home economics class in 1963.

There was a brief return in 1992 when I was inspired to make curtains for a new lodging. I mentioned this to an adult violin student, as we appraised my naked windows facing the street. The following week she lugged a 1976 all-metal Singer sewing machine along the sidewalk, and thrust it into my arms. “I bought it, I never used it, it’s yours,” she announced. I enrolled in a beginners’ class at G Street Fabrics in Rockville, Maryland, where I was thrillingly able to make a tote bag and a blouse. (The bag I still use; the blouse I wore out.) I called my experience “Re-doing 8^th Grade Home Ec.” The important core of my success was learning to go slowly and carefully. In the class, I watched hurrying students put a heavy foot on the machine pedal, stitch madly out of control, and then rip out seams for hours. This was something I had done at age 12, not knowing The Secret of Slow and Careful.

So, I made some curtains, put the sewing machine away, and did not return to it until 2013.

  

What brought me back? Not curtains, and definitely not aprons. There were a number of reasons. First of all, there was the issue of fit. I am 5’3” and small-boned. I am also rather thin and somewhat awry in my proportions. I am thin because my diet is 90% vegetables.Then, there are two ancient pins in my left ankle, causing me to be a little lopsided. Also, playing the violin all my life has made my left neck-to-shoulder territory shorter and more congested with muscle than my right side. Ready to wear clothing just doesn’t fit properly. So, that was one reason I decided to sew.

More compelling attractions were the seductive twins of textiles and handwork. I have always loved fabrics, rugs, quilts, costumes, woolens, the Textile Museum in Washington D.C., the lace galleries in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Costume Institute at the Met in NYC, weavers in India, silks in Japan, cotton prints of the Kuna people of Panama, etc.  And handwork---which produces an amazing alpha-and-beta-wave combo---is Big Pharma to me. Sewing can set off those brain waves until time disappears, and I bliss out with concentration.  Years before, I crocheted and knitted, but stopped because I couldn’t stop. It was too calming, too pleasant, too addictive, too opposite-of-me. 

But I made the big decision to start sewing with the best reason of all: it’s a reward! A reward for what? For eating healthfully, exercising daily, taking my vitamins, seeing the doctor and dentist at proper intervals, growing all the vegetables we eat all year long, taking care, taking great care, every single day. One needs a Big Reward for all that, so I gave it to myself, and set up a sewing section in “The Studio.” 

As the second anniversary of my Sewing Reward approaches, today I celebrate  being able to concentrate on the lovely pima cotton lawn shirt, my 30^th garment, counting all of the muslins (practice garments) I painstakingly stitched and fitted. So, I am contemplating a reward for pursuing my reward: a new “Rolls Royce” up-to-date sewing machine to replace my trusty “Model T” Singer. I’ve almost earned it.

 

Here is the tote bag from 1992,  holding my swimming gear (with Sophie the Cat)

The sewing section! Observe (left to right) pieces of shirt #3, shirt #2 on the dress form, and the 1976  Singer

Set the Date---For a Performance, That Is

The best advice I ever received for getting the ponderous mechanism of serious violin practice underway is to set a date for a performance. Then everything organizes itself: daily practice starts, and then proceeds in a logical way until the day of the event. For me, this works perfectly.

On June 12, 2015, I retired from regular studio violin teaching. This was because I wanted to devote all possible time to my many interests. As it was summer, the garden demanded two to four hours of daily outdoor work. There was sewing, reading, socializing, cultural events, and travel plans to be fitted in to my schedule. Since I wasn’t teaching, or playing in any group, there was nothing at all I was expected to do with the violin. “Freedom!” This was my first thought, followed by feelings of guilt: how could I think this way when I had so many years of playing behind me, such a fine violin and bow, so many lessons in the past from so many eloquent teachers? Freedom and guilt were both useless ideas for me. I needed some other principles.

After pondering my relationship with the violin, I remembered the advice to set the date. Handily, my neighbor’s parents had recently located to Silver Spring from Connecticut, and resided in a beautiful retirement community not far away. When I suggested to the neighbor that I set up a recital for her parents and the other residents, she was very enthusiastic---not just because of her parents, but because of a performance I owed her. Seven years ago, she “won” a performance from me in a school silent auction, targeted for her son’s Bar Mitzvah. I was unable to give it because of severe tendonitis. A long memory served her well.

So, I called the activities director at Kensington Park Senior Living, and set that date.  Action! I arranged to play with Grace, a good friend who plays violin and piano. Together we chose a 30-minute repertoire, set up a rehearsal, and for the next three weeks, I got back into shape to perform solos and duos in public after a long hiatus. Of course, as all performers know, this must involve consistent daily practice. (No! You may not skive off on Sunday!) Slow practice, spot practice, speeding up with the metronome, loathsome self-recording, practice run-throughs, and most importantly, trying to attain beautiful tone and phrasing.

Artistry: this is a term that is not frequently associated with average violin students under the age of 13. (Think instead: “nascent musicality.”) It wanted to escape my notice as well, since so much of my close-to-retirement practice consisted of exploring student repertoire. However, my friend and colleague Leonid Sushansky hinted to me that this could be a great “retirement focus.” He also recommended consistent practice as a key element of performance ability. These were powerful suggestions, which I took immediately.

And there was the date, September 13^th, first floating in the future, and then inexorably drawing closer and closer. My practice intensified. My recital partner and I were equally affected, protesting incompetence, mediocrity, lack of will and focus; and it was I who delivered the big winner of self-deprecation, “I’m not as good as I used to be, and I never was.”

But daily practice, that precious consistency, of course paid off. My tone developed, phrasing was a joy, and the nitty-gritty slow intonation practice, open-string bowing, playing in rhythms, and other practice room staples crept through my fingers and brain to help coax out elusive artistry---maybe in mere seconds--but it wanted out!

The day of a performance is always the worst for me. I awoke on September 13^th in a foul mood. Nasty illusions abounded. Life was not worth living. All my activities and interests pulled me into despondency. Ugh. Even putting on a pair of socks was awful. But I went through the morning, ate a big lunch, and then took a restorative nap. I did my last practice. I dressed and primped extravagantly, which was amusing.

Grace and I did a run-through at her house, and then we went to Kensington Park Senior Living, set up, and played the concert in two locations! They weren’t flawless performances, but for me, standing in front of people, focusing intently, pulling expression from the strings of my instrument, listening to Grace, and trying to have heartfelt collaboration---all this effort during the performance was the essence of the work of the previous weeks. This was the most exhilarating and enjoyable part of the entire process.

Immediately afterwards, and during the following day, I felt joy, a release, comfort and satisfaction.

Let’s do it again.

Performing Handel Sonata in E Major with Grace Boeringer

My neighbor and her parents, the three people on the right

Performing downstairs in "The Groves"

Poster that was created to display at Kensington Park

The program

Soaker Hose Fabulousness

I have been a vegetable gardener in my humble suburban lot for nine growing seasons, and I’m just now discovering the wonder of soaker hoses. It’s embarrassing to give the reason. By chance, I planted a banana pepper bush in the exact spot where the sump pump drains during a heavy rainfall, and the crop of peppers has been phenomenal.

All these years I have been under-watering my poor vegetables! I could rationalize my ignorance by noting that Silver Spring Maryland is lushly green, and that I always harvested enough the last five seasons to fill three shelves of our vegetable freezer. I conscientiously used rain barrel water to soak everything that seemed to need it.  Also, over watering is evil. But the pepper plant spoke to me, so I purchased enough Gilmour flat soaker hoses to cover all of my back yard beds: 375 feet of “gentle, even and efficient watering,” as stated on the label.

This is an eccentric and inefficient task for September, as all the hoses need to be drained and put away before a hard frost. But note: there are cover crops of winter rye and legumes planted for soil enrichment. Kale, collards, beets, turnips and Jerusalem artichokes will be harvested until cold weather. Anyway, it’s been in the 90’s this week, and I need those hoses now!

After laying the hoses, there was such a surge in the growth of turnips and kale that the first harvest is imminent. It was fun to put the hoses down, trying to figure out the configuration.  It was even more fun to turn the spigot a quarter turn, and watch the beads of water spread foot by foot. Here’s a map of most of the hoses--couldn't get it upright on the blog---sorry!

This brings up an important point about gardening for me: every task is equally interesting and absorbing. Interesting and absorbing equals calming; calming equals happiness. The humble and ordinary soaker hose caused me to ascend to delight.

I got my happiness, then it rained 7/10 of an inch last night: gentle, even, and efficient watering.

 Here are some pictures from after the rain

The banana pepper with white sump hose pipe behind.

75' soaker hose, view 1: good view of the cover crops in the foreground.

Two 50' soaker hoses: collards, broccoli, and cover crops from front to back.

75' soaker hose, view 2: turnips, cover crops. The bed in the middle was just seeded.

A Life of Interests: An Introduction to this Blog

I have spent my life getting interested in something and letting the interest lead me into many directions, until it became a wound-up collection of topics, like a rubber band hoarder’s ball. My earliest passionate interest starting around the age of seven or eight was commonly ordinary for little girls: horses.  I read every book about horses in the children’s section of the library, fiction and non-fiction. I had a beloved collection of plastic horses, which were the only objects in my room I cared to arrange and dust. I studied riding from books, and used a largish concrete pipe section in the neighbor’s yard to “ride on” and “practice.” That led to begging for real riding lessons, which I earned by vacuuming our entire house. (I must have been about nine.) Then I was driven to Eaton Canyon Stables, a place filled with children, parents and instructors so unbearably snooty that my mother couldn’t bear to stick around to watch. It was miserable for me too, so I secretly discarded the idea of getting on a horse again.  I saw movies about horses on TV and at the theaters; I implored my father to take me to Santa Anita racetrack, which he did, once. At one point I so loved a huge and expensive book by a famous painter of horses, that I promised my parents that its purchase would be my sole Christmas present. I took a class at the Pasadena Art Museum where I only drew and painted horses, until the teacher gave up trying to persuade me to try something else. How long did this passion last? It’s still with me! When American Pharoah won the Triple Crown this year, I wept.

As the years go by, my passionate interests have become like powerful magnets being dragged through coarse sand, picking up pointy filings of related fascinations. Japanese, Japan, Japanese cooking, history, religions, customs, art, literature, music, Kabuki, Noh, film, husband, in-laws, etc.   Violin playing, chamber music, composers, recordings, performing, concert attendance, teaching, repertoire, pedagogy, travel, etc.

ETC., ETC.

The interests keep coming, joining the ones already there. They have never stopped, ever. They fuel, enliven, and drive my existence.I am enthralled by them.

TIMELINE

Here is an approximate chronology of when my various interests started:

1959                     Horses

1967                     Violin study with the Suzuki Method 

1968                     Spanish, travel

1969                     Japanese, Japan, Violin teaching, literary fiction

1970                     University classes in general education

1973                     Classical music: symphonies, chamber music

1974                     Latin American literature, bicycling, general education

1978                     Chamber music, French

1979                     London, French, museum visiting, European travel

1980                     Opera, theater, spiritual growth

1981                     Calligraphy, French literature

1983                     Italian, Italian literature

1984                     German

1985                     Arabic—Modern Standard

1986                     Arabic—Egyptian dialect, Egypt travel/history

1990                     Polish

1993                     Knitting

1994                     Violin study—traditional approaches

1996                     GLBT

1999                     Drawing and watercolor               

2001                     String quartets: Playing and studying

2004                     New home/neighborhood

2005                     Chinese, another new home/neighborhood! Native plants/natural habitat

2006                     Organic vegetable gardening, American String Teachers Association

2010                     Longevity diet and CRON

2011                     Fashion and Style

2014                     Sewing