The Dreamstress

After the success of the outer-suburb Craft Crawl, and after letting out pocketbooks recover from it, the lovely ladies of the Wellington Sewing Bloggers and I convened to do the CBD half of the  Craft & Textile Lover’s Guide to Wellington as a Craft Crawl.

This one was quite fun because it really was a crawl (well, a stroll) – you can visit every one of the delicious crafty shops in central Wellington in one easy walk.

The craft crawl started out with just myself, Gemma of  66 Stitches  (who writes exactly like she talks – and it’s adorable and always makes me smile!  You have to imagine it in a very strong but quite attractive Aussie accent) and Juliet  of  Crazy Gypsy Chronicles  (who keeps the sewing awesomeness of the WSB going in Palmy).  At Stop 2 we were joined by  Zara of Off-Grid Chic  (Yay! A repeat from CC Part 1)  and on stop 5 we picked up Sophie-Lee of Pins & Noodles  (who manages to be a doctor and a talented seamstress – talk about overachieving!).  Plus, we got to see two more bloggers at their shops!

We started downtown, right off Lambton Quay, at Arthur Toye fabrics, which isn’t properly on the Craft Guide, and which is shutting down in early 2014 (boo).  I bought some bunny fabric (it has bunnies on it!), but didn’t take photos as it wasn’t an official stop.  After Arthur Toye’s we headed downstairs to:

Stop #1: #13 on  The Craft and Textile Lovers Guide to Wellington:  Sherezad Silks, which is  downstairs in the BNZ Centre off Willis St.

Swoon.  Just swoon.  Really!  The problem with Sherezade is that I want to buy EVERYTHING so much that I can’t just choose one!  Juliet had no such problem though.  She wanted that red and gold jacquard!

And possibly these ostrich feathers:

I think I’ve narrowed down my desperate wanting of everything in the shop to particularly desperately wanting two fabrics, this large scale yellow and gold bizarre silk, or that glorious pale ivory-gold jacquard.  But I can’t afford both, so I’m going to have to decide…

Unfortunately, I’m going to have to decide quickly as we found out that Sherezade is shutting up its physical shop early next year!  Oh no!

This does mean there is a huge range of gorgeous fabrics at half prices.  Yum!

Sales are nice, but it’s gutting to be loosing another wonderful craft shop.  There are three shutting this year: Arthur Toyes, The Asia Gallery, and Sherezad.  I think it’s been really hard for shops in the economic climate, especially with the earthquakes.  Wherever you are, if you love your local craft stores, now is really the time to show them and support them as much as possible!

After mourning the looming loss of Sherezad, we headed a few streets over to:

Stop #2: #8 on  The Craft and Textile Lovers Guide to Wellington:  Made It,  103 Victoria St.

Made it is pretty much crafters heaven, because it’s full of gorgeous crafty things that someone else already  made – so you get all the handmade yumminess without any of the frustration or guilt over how long it sat in your stash!  And best of all, it’s part owned by one of the WSB herself: Elisabeth of The Sewphist!

At the shop Zara & Juliet drooled over jewellery, and books, and cards, and pretty much everything:

Juliet made faces at things she didn’t like:

And things she did:

And Gemma and I did Christmas shopping, and then Elisabeth took the official Craft Crawl picture for us (and I’m wearing the Bad Plaid dress!)

Next, it was just up Cuba Mall to:

Stop #3: #7 on  The Craft and Textile Lovers Guide to Wellington: Knit World,  Shop 210b Left Bank, Cuba Mall

Knitting and crocheting are hobbies I dare not take up because I don’t have enough space to have another stash, but oh, do I yearn for warm hand-knitted jumpers and pretty lacy scarves!  I walked around Knit World picking up the yarn and cooing at it.

Even for a strictly-sewing girl like me, there is plenty to love and buy at Knit World, from sewing machines:

To totally adorable buttons:

Look!  There are hedgehogs!  And scottie dogs!  And bunnies!  And sheep showing their bottoms!

With our crawl halfway done, it was time to stop for lunch.  We chose Midnight Expresso, for their comfy booths, chilled music, and delicious food which covered all the necessary dietary requirements.

Distracted by food, I had a brain blip and completely forgot to take us to what was supposed to be:

Stop #4: #4 on  The Craft and Textile Lovers Guide to Wellington:  Fabrics Direct,  97 Ghuznee St

I’ll be making it a point to stop in over the next few weeks, as Fabrics Direct does have some gorgeous fabrics!

Since we skipped it we headed straight on to:

Stop #5: #5 on  The Craft and Textile Lovers Guide to Wellington:  The Fabric Store,  15 Garrett St

 

The Fabric Store was particularly exciting, as we all had sale vouchers from being on their mailing list.  Sophie-Lee bought trouser fabric, as did I (I’m making Wearing History’s Smooth Sailing trousers).  Juliet was after the perfect broderie anglaise.  Zara bought the most amazing zebra print fabric (with actual zebras on it) and the most glorious floral which I would never be able to wear.

And we all sighed and touched and petted everything else.

And then we got a bit silly and ‘curated’ an assemblage of leopard print fabrics with the idea that each WSB should pick one to make an item out of as a challenge:

Individually each of these fabrics is quite lovely, or at least unoffensive, and they don’t look too bad as a group, but in real life, together, they clash hideously.  Gemma shrieked with laughter when she saw our grouping!

After adding to our stashes mightily at The Fabric Store (there are Australian and American branches too, so those of you overseas can get in on the deliciousness!) we headed further up Cuba too:

Stop #6: #10 on  The Craft and Textile Lovers Guide to Wellington:  Minerva Textile Books & Gallery,  237 Cuba St

Minerva was literally so glorious and distracting that I forgot to take photos.  I was just overwhelmed by the textiles, and cards, and journals, and books.  Oh…the books!  Every decadent sewing and textile book you could dream of, from edge modern sewing, through textile history, and guides to every sewing and craft from knitting to Hawaiian quilting.

I was just so delighted I couldn’t get my camera out!  I’ll have to go back and get you photos though!

Lucky last, and lucky #7, is

Stop #7: #19 on  The Craft and Textile Lovers Guide to Wellington: Made on Marion, Marion St

Made on Marion is, of course, where I teach all my sewing classes, and is owned by our very own WSB Maryanne of Sent from my iRon.

We squealed over pom-poms and boutique quilting fabric, and stocked up on zips and needles and interfacing and other indispensables to finish all of the garments we were going to make with the fabrics we had just bought.

Then we collapsed on to the welcoming couches for tea and cookies, and to admire the lampshades that Maryanne’s lampshade class were just finishing.

Another wonderfully successful day!  We’re so lucky to have so many great craft and textile stores in our area.  Touring them is a must-do for the craftily inclined who visit Wellington!

How many craft or textile shops do you think you have within an hours drive of where you are?  Have you ever tried to tour them all?

In researching for the Historical Sew Fortnightly Challenge #6: Fairytale, I came across all the versions of Donkeyskin/Allerleirauh.

It’s an old fairy tale based around the premise that a Queen dies leaving a daughter, and her father the King declares/promises he will only marry a woman who is as beautiful/wise/kind/etc as his first wife.  The daughter grows up and is the spitting image of her mother, so the King decides he will marry her (yes, really.  It’s sometimes called The King Who Wished to Marry His Daughter).  The daughter puts him off by saying that first she needs a dress as golden as the sun (or something equally as un-obtainable), and when this is procured, a dress as silver as the moon (ditto), and when this is managed, one as dazzling as the stars (you get the idea), and finally a coat made from the skins of one of each of all the birds and beasts that exist/the skin of her father’s prized donkey that poops gold (no, I didn’t make that up either!).  When her father manages this she realises she can no longer put him off, so she stuffs her dresses in nutshells, puts on the coat, and runs off into hiding as a servant at another castle.  There she goes to balls in the dresses and the prince falls in love with her and they marry.  And they live happily ever after, more or less.

What I realised in reading these fairy tales is that they are very early examples of the way women are taught that we mustn’t say no.

Yes, we’re supposed to say no to drugs, and peer pressure, and excessive alcohol, and sex, but we still aren’t supposed to tell men “No.”

We aren’t allowed to say “No, you can’t have my number.”  “No, I don’t want to dance with you.”  “No, I won’t go out with you” much less the far worse, just plain old “NO” to any of those scenarios.  Instead, we’re supposed to give fake numbers, to claim sprained ankles or that we’ve promised the dance already, to make up non-existant boyfriends, or say we are taking a break from relationships.

Donkeyskin is doing exactly this.  Her father is demanding to marry her and she can’t say “Umm…you’re my dad and what you are asking for is horrible and dreadful, so NO!”  Instead, she has to come up with excuses: I will once you have made me a nearly impossible frock.  And another impossible frock.  And an even more impossible coat.

Her dad wants to marry her!  “No” should be more than sufficient!

Yes, I understand that in the context of the story she is buying time and trying to find a way out, and in the context of medieval society women had few choices, and it was hard to say no, but in modern society women are taught to give excuses, rather than a simple “No” – just as our crazy-skin wearing princess gives excuses rather than saying “No.”

Another example of not saying no is The Franklin’s tale, from Chaucher’s Canterbury Tales.  Dorigen is happily married, does not want or encourage Aurelius, but is finally pestered by him so much that instead of saying no she gives a joking evasive answer of “I’ll sleep with you if this improbable thing happens.”   Aurelius, of course, manages to make the improbably thing happen, and Dorigen has to face the consequences of her promise.

Now, my parents were really good at teaching me a lot of kinds of “No.”  No to the aforementioned drugs/peer pressure/all alcohol/sex etc came easily to me.  I was even good at the “No” to requests for phone numbers and dates and dancing. when I wasn’t interested.

But I wasn’t taught, and most women aren’t taught, to just say “No” to doing favours.  We are told we always have to be there for friends, we have to be on every committee, plan every party, wear every dreadful bridesmaids dress, bake every batch of cookies for the school fair, help out at every stall, make every frock, and generally say “Sure, of course.”  And if we really don’t want to, if we really can’t – we still can’t say no.  We have to give an excuse.  “Oh, that’s the same day as X”, “Sorry, but X has a cold”, etc, etc.

It was my friend Theresa of Existimatio who introduced me to the idea of just saying “No.”  Not giving a caveat, not giving an excuse, just saying “No”.

She and I and Chiara of Ampersand and some other lovely ladies and even a few men sat around and discussed how to just say “No,” and how that would feel from both perspectives.  Most of the ladies, and certainly myself, found the idea of just saying “No” hard to face.  We’ve had so many years of societal pressure to be nice, and saying “No” isn’t nice.  We’re supposed to soften it – to wrap it in sweet excuses.  We’ll go as far as to go out with two phones – our ‘real’ phone, and a junk one, so we can give the junk ones number and not be caught out in a lie if they text it right away.  The men pointed out that a blank “No” is nicer than a fake phone number.  They also acknowledged, that some men, like Aurelius, are just dicks who won’t take no for an answer.

The solution to this is not to eventually give an excuse.  In modifying our “No” to make it softer and more socially acceptable, some men come to think that “it is usual with young ladies to reject the address of a man whom they secretly mean to accept, when he first applies for their favour; and that sometimes the refusal is repeated a second or even a third time.”

Now, there is no excuse for men to not believe a “No”, however it is phrased, but not saying “No” didn’t help Dorigen with Aurelius, and nothing but a societal smackdown, no pretty excuses, is going to get those men to understand.  We owe it to ourselves, and to men, to simply say “No”, when we aren’t interested.

Clearly the issue of men asking for phone numbers and dates is not one that troubles me much anymore – I have such an obvious excuse that I never feel obliged to give it, just a “No.”  I’m taking the idea further and working on the other refusals in life: at learning not to give excuses or to say yes to requests for favours that I don’t actually have the time and energy to supply.

I’m not very good at it yet, but I look at  Donkeyskin/Allerleirauh and I think “Sweetie, you really aren’t the best role model.  Your dad just asked to marry you and you couldn’t just say “No.”

We don’t live in a fairy tale.  We don’t live in the Middle Ages.  Hopefully none of us will ever get put in a situation as dreadful as  Donkeyskin/Allerleirauh’s, but even for the small unwanted situations, maybe we should think about just saying “No.”