Initially, I thought that this project was going to be sort of tedious and less interesting than it has been because even though I love clothes I was not sure at the time if I wanted to make them. Also, the fact that it was for school really made it sound unappealing to me just because I have never liked school. I began with the idea of creating a pair of pants similar to the Rick Owens Aircuts, which feature two zippers that spiral up the legs and end at the top of the hip. My design featured zippers that would just go up the back of the pant leg and stop at the point of the back pocket. I came up with this design before spring break.
After the break, I had my first sewing class with Levi. I always looked at sewing as something that seemed very tedious and annoying to do, but I was surprised as I received my sampler and began practicing. I was having a lot of fun doing it, but I was really bad. my stitches were all different sizes and directions, and my “lines” were far from straight. Karen offered to give me a time on Thursday and Friday of that week to come in for some extra practice. I agreed to meet with her and got quite good at sewing in these two sessions. I learned the running stitch, cross-stitch, and backstitch, and got quite good at all 3 in this 2 hour period. after going to my session on Thursday, I went to Levi’s house and went thrifting. I bought 5 pairs of jeans and 2 jackets, and Levi bought a bag, a chain, a pair of dress pants, and a pair of jeans. We then went back to his house, and I took off one of the back pockets of a pair of black jeans I picked out to work on. Taking the pocket off the back of the jeans was a little bit stressful for me because I could not tell if I was tearing the seams or the jeans themselves with the thread puller. With some guidance from Levi, I finished removing the pocket I decided that I was going to do boro stitching in rows all the way down to the bottom of the pocket. I started doing the stitching in Levi’s den, while we had the new Rick Owens runway video playing on the TV. I worked on the back pocket for about 5 hours that day, and by the time I finished, I didn’t even realize how much time had elapsed. I then took a break and then got back to work, and eventually went home.
When I got home, I thought to myself about how different this project is than I expected it to be. I was enjoying myself while being productive, something I had not seen happen in a long time. Sewing has really proven to help me mentally, as it is very soothing and relaxing to just focus on the next stitch and not worry about anything else. To look back and think about how I thought this was going to just be a drag and very boring just shows me how I need to work on keeping an open mind, and that just because it is the school does not mean it has to be terrible.