Dearest beautiful friends and community,

This dress took a couple of weeks, all in all, to make... all done by hand stitching, even the hems. Organic design, i.e. no design per se. Long evenings, stitching and stitching and stitching. Draping the garment and letting the form shape itself... Read on if you are interested!

I should preface this post with a disclaimer: I do not work in a linear fashion and so, I can document certain moments, but they are never going to be a tutorial in the conventional sense! Just so you know what you're getting into here: my process is entirely organic, no tape measures, not measurements, few tryings-on, but tons of spontaneous super-concentrated mystical tweaking - which it doesn't occur to me to photograph, when I'm fully immersed in it!

The basic materials are from the house of a close friend who died very recently. His (weekend) house was left in a state of disuse, and because my kind-of-partner and I hold the keys to it (and the gardens, which I've been working as my own for several years), we have taken it upon ourselves to at least tidy and clean, repair and put in order, what we can.

Amongst various items that I know someone else would throw out,, I brought home some warped books, chipped teapot - and these red sheets and pillow cases - the latter having been munched through by mice, and being uniformly covered in cat hair (!)

I went into this phase of chopping up and pinning, fairly intensively!

A serious washing and airing in the bright Italian sunshine, and the fabrics were ready: I'd been looking at Minju Kim's A-line dresses for inspiration recently, and was watching a fabulous-costumed film The Royal Tailor: I wouldn't copy something directly - not even the basic form of it - but I just got the enthusiasm to make something of that feeling - wide, bollowing, abundant rich fabric - but handmade myself, not expensive and bought: just free and perfect for me. For me, this fabric is particularly beautiful and meaningful colour, as well as coming from Sergio's house now that he is no longer with us in body: the red makes me think of Buddhist monk clothes, Indian wedding dresses, and the cloak of the Madonna in Renaissance paintings... This resonates perfectly with my intention to create a sacred dress, which will protect me as I gestate.

I started by just cutting the sheet in two: it's a fitted sheet, with ruched and elasticated corners. I cut it in half along the middle, and then hemmed up the edges that had been cut. Then I began shaping each side: I wanted a longer side for the back, and a shorter one for the front; I wanted part of the elasticated edging to run along above the bust, and I thought of incorporating the corner ruching inside the pockets. I visioned (but was not bound to!) a big billowing skirt, with ample room for my belly to further grow... I am in month 5 of gestation, and my beautiful rounding body is pressing out of many of my clothes. I'm VERY sensitive to having anything elasticated around the curve of my 'bump' and so am starting to make the clothes that I need to keep me absolutely warm, comfy, and relaxed: safe and happy! I went on, sewing the sides together, and putting a waistband in under the bust to ruch and shape it...

As I mentioned in my shorter article before around this project, my step-mum is at a very late and very critical stage of terminal disease, and I've been digesting a lot around what this means - for myself and for all the family. I've been working through a lot of grief that she couldn't get her heart into the Gerson Therapy that my brother and I were advising at length about: this is such a theme in my life - being guardian of 'secrets' and working passionately to share solutions and remedies - but the mainstream folks not being able to get their heads around it, because their concept of 'healing' involves delegating all their power, vitality, and riches-of-health to the pharmaceutical industry via doctors and hospitals. It is so very very very painful to watch loved ones (or any other living woman or man) making choices that take them away from Life, and further into suffering and pain - when the path in the Right direction is ALWAYS AND IN ALL WAYS WIDE OPEN.

All of this has been tumbling around my mindbodyspirit - riding on cosmic waves of sadness and releasing life-long-held emotions - as I sew so many stitches. The blessing of an intense project like this is in the amount of concentration required to keep the stitching straight and the material aligned: I can think about deep things, but they tend to move forward effortlessly, as the stitching unfolds... like talking at length, or walking all day long: stitching unravels and makes anew.

These couple of photos show the placing and ruching of the pocket space...

this last couple of photos are of the dress before the pockets were put in - but the shape of the pocket holes is finally formed solidly

and this snap shows the pocket first set in, and you can see the side seam of the dress, where one sheet was sewn to the other.

I made a podcast today, talking about this process of gestating, grieving, healing, making sense of everything changing so rapidly and dynamically in the world - and about how we can make everything make sense, by making, doing, creating spontaneously... Especially with our clothing: the more I sew and master my materials, and make unusual and imperfectly-perfect garments - the more I sense how vital this is - as a means of activating the full self, our True Nature - our spiritual and living force. Regular clothes do not do this for us, even if they're expensive and important 'labels'. I get that I no longer want to be a divided and separated as an 'ID' or identity - I want to/ must/ Will feel whole, safe, comfortable, and light in my clothes; they will ring with me, sing around me, and increasingly free me into each day.

The pockets ended up taking a long time to resolve: first I put in ribbons instead of elastic, then took them out, then thought of a variety of ways to make the internal part of the pockets (which is very spacious) sit better in-line with the outline of the skirt... It all came together finally, Sunday morning, as I had a final session on them, sewing them upwards into the body of the skirt, and allowing the back of the pocket to sit freely behind - it works perfectly, as the back of the pocket rests under my button-and-hole side connectors. I love how this worked out! None of it measured, just the right height for my hands, huge space to put even hands-with-big-gloves-on into! (I was in the gardens yesterday and filled the pockets with quite a load of manderini!)

Finishing this main text of this post today, as I fill the hour after the mercato and before walking to my 'in-laws' for Sunday lunch, I can reflect on what it has felt like to wear this pinafore robe outside, and to go about daily activities... I have the ottimo grey wool fitted wrap-around jacket for it, and a big grey wool scarf, my leather ankle boots and leggings and wool dress underneath. It sits on top and under the outer layers, divinely, and I finished it all off with a pair of red fingerless gloves which I got cheap at the market last week: just the perfect colour to go with it all!

It feels very different and far more pleasant and comfortable, than wearing an average item of clothing. Many folks look twice at me, but then can't quite label or compartmentalise what I am or what my clothes mean, to them. I like this. I loved a particular moment when a young woman 12 yrs or so, who I know to say Ciao to, walked towards me with a Carnivale costume on - it had a similar big red robe/ skirt to mine, though hers was a supermarket-bought synthetic version - we smiled an extra-special hallo today, which felt so beautiful; one younger woman playing with 'queendom' and one Womb One In Queendom. A gorgeous playful weaving of moments.

I met an older man friend, Raffaele, who recently gave me a copy of his book that he's written, with stories of his growing up in this town... he was saying that the Carnivale used to be much bigger, and more special - and I responded that, of course, because the costumes would have been handmade and would've had much more meaning and beauty, connection and vitality, community and power in them - whereas now they're mass-produced and bought from the supermercato - and they teach children simply to consume.

At least I can see and feel and be activated by the difference in my clothing. It is such a private and 'personal' and yet public and collective thing, wearing less-usual clothes. If I am so happy in my clothing, then this should radiate out as gift to the collective - in subtle and not so subtle ways. We can all weave more colour, depth and meaning into culture, by making our own clothing..... Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.

it's also a practical working dress

LOVE and BLESSINGS to you all in your projects and creations!