beginning my new jumpsuit project, by the river Alva, in central Portugal - if you look closely, you might see @vincentnijman and his niece in the middle of the river in the distance

A week of powerful settling, including deeply-satisfying alterations and repairs, teaching Vincent's niece to sew.... and a major new sacred jumpsuit project.

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Hallo beautiful friends, needleworkers and creative geniuses!

This has been another heavenly week - sprinkled with an appropriate seasoning of challenge and exercise - in which I'm getting tantalisingly closer to my ideal lifestyle, with sewing at its centre.

(very) temporary encampment at the mini river-beach

I was at the river for just a short period yesterday, with Vincent and Yumi, and got at least some basic tacking of the beginning of the jumpsuit - between showing Yumi how to tuck in a loose wool strand on her newly-transformed yellow cardigan (see below for the new buttons it has!)

the giant blanket, gifted by a dear friend

Kerry very generously gifted me a load of beautiful household treasures when she sold her house in Guardia... This amazing and gorgeous dream-blanket was one of them, which she said at the time I was welcome to cut up into something fabulous...

At first I negated that possibility! Why would one destroy such a perfect bedlinen!? However, since arriving here in Portugal, and needing some additional realigning of boundary, aura, and domestic harmony - I felt the need to make a magical Perfect Jumpsuit, for wearing around house and garden, that would solve any feeling of vulnerability in being in such a new situation.

Anyhow: there wasn't much time to think or sit quietly, as I am still in the process of carving that out - but I am adapting to the somewhat chaotic creative flow of our shared everyday - in this new family constellation, and new climate and biodiversity.

me helping Yumi to choose new buttons, for this yummy cardigan which had no closure at the front

So the weekend was mostly taken up with caring for a highly-strung 8 year old....

Sewing has a lot of power to transform high-tension in children! Here we're choosing both buttons and poppers/ snaps, for the closure of the cardigan - I get Vincent's niece to at least take part in the selection and in the reasoning about why and how a closure should work on a garment. It took most of the second day to get her grounded sufficiently for us to actually work with the needle and scissors - which had a brilliant calming effect.

We had a lot of fun, checking all my button boxes, narrowing down a selection of 6 button sets, and making a matchstick game with Uncle Vincent to help select the final one - above: a magnificent heavy shell pair.

And the poppers; to avoid having to add loops or buttonholes (which are very messy in a loose-knit garment!) - we discussed how to line up the poppers with both the buttons and each other.

The final effect, which pulls the cardigan in a little at the front, but nevertheless is rather nice! We also considered cat-shaped buttons, and red, green, brown or black ones... I feel that the white ones were an optimum choice; very elegant!

Another button project - this time on Vincent's shirt; a lovely blue linen-silk mix one that a friend had gifted him - and which was pretty well-worn and missing a button at the bottom.

First challenge was to find a button similar to these, which would complete the look; I settled on this one... a very old, plastic simple thing.

It is even more relaxing, when the textiles are natural and very high quality: the thread pulls through easily and the final effects are so beautiful and right.

I just love working with such fabrics and threads.

I mused a while over how to repair some worn-away edges of the front of the shirt....

Then decided to cut a piece from the inside of the pocket (which I replaced by darning-in a contrasting piece of fabric, which won't be seen)...

In some parts, I simply darned directly the holes which had been made over time on the shirt. Vincent is very pleased with this newly-refreshed piece: I adore making such a gift of time and energy and attention to a loved-one's clothing... It is very satisfying!

And the white linen items: two glorious nightshirts which needed new armholes - because it appears that Italian folks a century ago had much smaller shoulders and thinner arms than myself! Above is the first; a typically monogrammed and uniquely handmade garment for sleeping. It is such a tactile experience wearing a piece like this.

But as with many of the vintage linen items I buy, it need major reshaping!

The wrist-holes were unwearable: I set about adapting them to my own size; cutting off the original sleeve, and altering the shoulder opening to fit nicely to my own body.

I already pinned both sleeves, and will likely hand-sew them this week: it has not been easy to be consistent lately: we are working on this! It is never completely effortless, moving home-country-culture at the same time as beginning a new soulmate alignment!

😊 🤗

And finally: a favourite buy from the 50c stall back in Italia, a gorgeously-formed night shift, which again had very tight armholes...

I cut wedges of an old sheet scrap, which had very similar and VERY delicious, texture of white linen/ cotton - then sewed them into the underarms to make the armholes bigger. I don't have a photo of this, as I'm wearing it right now as I sit and write my NWM post. But it is a good fit, much wider than necessary, that I'll neaten up with some tucks, which will make it fit perfectly around my bust. This is a particularly happy repair, as it is probably the nicest nightshirt I ever wore: the most comfortable, for a super-high-sensitive type who needs no tight fitting fabrics around the body at night!

Looking forward to seeing what you are all working on this week, dearest friends - as the nights draw in, in the northern hemisphere.

With Love!

www.claregaiasophia.com