The Year of Creativity - Week 3

Katie Rowe
Feb 14
4 min read

Updated: Feb 21

This was my third week of strongly encouraging myself to do something creative every day.

Week 3

This week I mostly made small progress on multiple projects, switching off between them throughout the week.

Themes of the Week:

Patterns & Prints: I'm trying to use more of them.
Nostalgia: All of the projects I worked on this week had some personal significance, especially my attempt to rescue a jacket that I thrifted as a teenager, which has now been with me for over a decade.

It's an Eddie Bauer jacket with a WPL code indicating it was produced in the 90s or early 2000s. I got it for probably about $8 in a New Jersey Goodwill (in high school, I thought, although the first pictures I found of it were from college). Based on the color of denim inside the pockets, I think it was originally a much deeper blue. Today it fits me about right but it was too big when I bought it, which meant I could layer it over chunky sweaters in the winter.

It has so many pockets: Front pockets, and side pockets, and an inside pocket on each side that's big enough to hold a book, journal, or snacks. It is still the only jacket I own that can fully replace a purse when I need it to.

This jacket has been with me for a long time, and it was part of my body during a moment of great change and growth - a time when, like today, I thought a lot about creativity and purpose. Although I never fully stopped wearing it, spending so much time with it this week felt like spending time with the 18-20 year old version of me. And taking care of it felt like taking care of her.

I'm giving it what feels like a very nostalgic mend, with floral print and energetic, sketchy embroidery. It's a bit outside of my usual style, but it feels true to both the jacket's 90s roots and to my younger self.

Sunday - House Frames & Jacket Idea

I had hung this little house portrait, which I made last week, on the wall in front of my sewing machine, and decided to explore what it would look like to actually frame it. The sketch that had originally inspired it showed a series of little buildings, all in frames.

I started by laying out a few different options for background fabric and frames:

I was drawn to the blue floral print curtain, which I had just picked up for a couple dollars at Savers. I did a little experiment using decorative embroidery to trace the flowers and leaves, which simultaneously broke my last machine needle and sparked a new idea: Using the floral print to mend my beloved denim jacket, which has suffered both significant wear and several poorly executed mending attempts over the years.

Monday - Weaving

Still needle-less, I started the day by noodling a little more on what decorative mending I'd like to do with the floral fabric.

Then I started something new-ish: I have a child's loom that my friend Avi gave me, which I had used to do a weaving with scraps of fabric from my wedding. I realized afterward that the output of the loom was about the same size as the little storage ottoman I have in my studio, which has some stains I'd like to cover. My plan is to make 4 more full sized weavings plus some small pieces for the sides of the lid, and then fasten them all together with a lining as a wrap for the box.

I can tell that this is going to be a longer term background project - The first one stayed on the loom for probably a couple months, and I find it hard to concentrate for very long. I think it's valuable to keep doing it for two reasons:

The thing that I move onto when I get bored of weaving is often another project
I want to work on being able to stay present without distraction for longer

Tuesday - Jacket Sketch

Another commute day, and another day when all I had in me was a <10 minute sketch:

Wednesday - Other Sketch

Wednesday was also a commute day, but I woke up an extra hour early (bad overall, but good for creativity time). I had new needles by then, so I spent my morning hour experimenting more with decorative embroidery on the floral print (with green this time), and doing a mockup of what it might look like to use that to patch a hole.

And I also had a small amount of motivation to go back into the studio after I got home from work, which I used to do a little more weaving.

Thursday - Weaving Prep

Thursday was a busy day, which included going to the gym before work and leaving right after work to go out to dinner and a show. All I managed was to do a bit of materials prep for the weaving by cutting/ripping my wedding dress scraps into thin strips and winding them.

Friday - Jacket Progress

I finished my mending mockup and made some actual progress on the mend itself:

Saturday - Jacket Progress

More jacket patching:

I'm not sold on the pocket lining, which feels a little too 90s rock-country now that I've laid it out. I'm going to sleep on that one and see where I land tomorrow.