Once upon a time I wanted to be a Lazy Girl. I still want to be a Lazy Girl. Oddly enough being a Lazy Girl doesn’t mean half assed work. I learned that the first time I worked on the Bendy bags. What I learned at that time is that Joan Hawley’s commitment to doing good work, and taking all the steps for a good looking product is actually pretty amazing. After this first attempt at the Lazy Girlness of it all wan’t totally successful. What it did lead to was a great discussion with Joan wherein we talked about pressing, and reading, and rereading the directions. Um, er, eh. Eh.
Joan was, of course, right about not only the need for pressing but for doing good work. I’m not averse to doing good work, I’m seriously lazy about pressing. I know pressing is important, I know how to press well, I know what I like for pressing aids and I can teach how to press. But the thing is I’m lazy. Not in the Joan does slow, careful, well thought out directions. She’s considered us in the writing taking great care so that we can follow the steps and make some beautiful things to use.
Joan does all the work so we can be lazy.
In the time since this conversation with Joan, I learned something really important. There are many ways of learning and doing. Some people learn, and do things in an orderly fashion, some will learn by doing and develop their own ways of doing things. Both are fine however there are still things that we want to do in order to achieve a good product. Which is what we really want to do.
Had I been in a Joan Hawley class my Bendy Bags might have turned out really really well. Probably. Most likely. Uh, oh. Well.
The cool thing is that Joan has some new patterns out. A whole big bunch of littles, that are fun, and practical for every day living. As I travel a bit here and there and will be doing a lot more in 2019 those CoCo cord Kimonos are high on the must make list. As are the Sadie Sweet Sacks for lunches and snacks.
But the thing I’m Jonesing most over is the Gertie Gift Boxes. Oh dear me I am smitten. Just look at these foldy bits of fabric stitched together to make a box and a pretty box. I mean seriously. When I was in Junior High (8th grade I think) we took a drafting class and this box reminds me of that class. It was by far one of my favorite classes ever. I have fabric for these beautiful simple, complex boxes.
Time to get stitching, have some fun, make some gifts.
Happy Day y’all,
Teri
Ps and then there’s Joan’s amazing social media platforms that are found here, and here
So many projects, so little time! I want to do all of these projects!