I am, it is often said, my own worst enemy. Never satisfied and incredibly indecisive, it’s amazing I get anything done.
I recently read somewhere that what screws us up most in life, is the picture in our heads of how it should be. While it’s an absolutely vital thing for us to have dreams and ambitions, we must surely be careful to credit ourselves for hard work done, and accomplishments achieved?
With this in mind, I am trying to be a little more positive about my ability to sew. Sometimes I think the only thing that lays between me and being a great dressmaker is a little inspiration, and practice.
So it is, then, that I have embarked upon a little business venture with a friend of mine in Wales who has his own tattoo studio. He has just moved to a bigger premises and now has a large shop front area that he wishes to fill with unique and lovely things to tempt his customers.
I started off easy, by sending a batch of rings from a few years ago when I get really into making jewellery out of domino’s. So that was a gentle way to get going, and for me to get some stock into their shop. I’ve just resolved that a good place to start with sewn things would be for me to make some nice furry hand muffs for winter, and some cute boot covers because these things don’t require the commitment of making full dress patterns, and the daunting task that is pattern grading.
So let me carry on along this slow and wobbly climb up mount-creativity, and cross my fingers that slowly but surely, I will achieve SOMETHING. It’s certainly more than I could achieve by being scared off the idea at the thought that no one will buy any of it. Positivity, people. Positivity.
I think this layout design has erased my comment button. Can anyone confirm this for me please?
Only the No Fit State circus will do.
So, Tomorrow I was supposed to be going to a film production company in London for a two day sewing trial, potentially leading to a job.
I called a few days ago, to speak to the boss, just to confirm our days and times and check in as it had been a month or so since we met.
She said she had changed her mind, and no longer needed me, apparently they now have too many people.
A huge part of me is destroyed. Another part of me is relieved. I don’t know if it’s because I’m not excited by the idea of moving back to London, or because (as described in my last entry) I am starting to feel as though perhaps the career I’ve been chasing for 10 years is no longer right for me.
Where do you turn in situations like this?
More importantly, why wont anyone take me seriously when I say I want to run away and join a circus?
It’s only today I’ve come to realize it was FIVE months ago that I did my first piece of costume work for film. It was five months ago I decided this was my life goal. It was five months ago that I was determined, once and for all, to get somewhere with it already.
Five months later and I have achieved nothing. I have not so much as sent CV’s to any potential employers. Alarmingly, I’ve even managed to confuse the complete and utter hell out of myself, by deciding that in actual fact, I hate sewing, and I have no skill in the subject. Or at least, no skill worth merit.
Now, the question here is: What the hell? So maybe I have a love/hate relationship with my “dream job”. Maybe that’s normal. Or maybe… just maybe, I’ve actually been trying for the last ten years to get somewhere with something that, in actual fact, I’m really not very good at.
I mean: When you’re meant to do something, when it’s your true gift, and you’re so passionate about it that nothing else matters, you just DO it, right? So now what?
I only wish I knew.
As a fairly sensitive individual, it would serve me well to remember that you can’t please everyone all the time.
Sometimes even your best is not good enough, and in such instances it would be judicious not to regard the displeasure or frustration of others as a personal attack.
No one is perfect, after all.
This song is the most moving, beautiful thing I have heard in a very very long time. I can not stop listening to it.
A momentous day in the life of Claire. I don’t claim to be interesting, I don’t even know why you’re reading this. But today has brought me one step closer to my dream. I hope I don’t proceed to take two steps back.
I spent the day making cotumes for a film which will star Bill Nighy. I’m glad I didn’t find this out until after I was done sewing. It might have made my lines all wobbly.
Like my brain, which should be joyous right now but instead insists on torturing me with melancholia. I shouldn’t be left alone with scissors.
Goosebumps
The moon looks hauntingly beautiful tonight.