Although I technically had enough time to make the new shirt I was planning for my husband’s Christmas gift last December (about a week leading up to Christmas Day), I decided not to engage in my previous habits of rushing to finish a highly-detailed project in time for Christmas morning. This what he unwrapped from me instead:
Some wonderful benefits I experienced from this choice I made included enjoying the ambiance of our home decorated for the holidays, the candles on the fireplace mantle, the beautiful Christmas music in the background, making festive dishes and baking things like fig and walnut biscotti, a first attempt for me but I’ll definitely be making these again! I also noticed a sense of being more present for these reflective few days leading up to Christmas Eve and day.
In early January, I started making my husband’s shirt. The fabric was already pre-washed and pressed so I began the slow process of cutting everything out single layer and lining up the plaid design as carefully as possible, a tricky affect to achieve because the “squares” in this particular plaid pattern were actually more of a 2 1/2”x 3” rectangle.
It was important to me that the shoulders and side seams lined up so when this worked well, it was very rewarding to behold:
Another fun benefit of making my husband’s shirt after Christmas was sharing the process with him as I went along. I was able to leave the door of my sewing room open and he would pop in from time to time with appreciative comments which were very encouraging to say the least.
Here is the finished shirt completed in mid January.
In conclusion, my recent experiences of not rushing to finish a project have reminded me that I enjoy the creativity of sewing, fine-honing my skills and the satisfaction of making something that will stand the test of time because of the care I put into it. It is not a competition but instead, my passion; helping to achieve a sense of balance in our current unstable and chaotic world circumstances.
PetiteSewSop 