Toile-ing Away

Now that I’m feeling more confident in my skill set and and am more sure of myself in general—there’s a bidirectional, synergistic relationship there that I’ve come to appreciate and will write about some other time—I’m taking the initial steps towards truly practising what I’ve been preaching for ages but have only half-managed to actually do until recently: slowing it down and being (more) deliberate in what I sew and in how I approach the sewing process.

Although I don’t regret anything I’ve sewn to this point, I am ready to challenge myself and take some calculated risks. It’s easy to fall into the tempting cycle of making one instant-gratification garment after the next, but this is the me-made equivalent of fast fashion, and isn’t moving away from garments you’ll only sport a few times one of the main benefits of sewing in the first place? I’ve thrown my fair share of $10.00 T-shirts in the to-be-donated pile; realizing that I was starting to toss shirts I’d spent hours making in that same pile was good evidence that it was time for a change. Given the days upon days of labour those rejected articles of clothing collectively represented, I could no longer tell myself that that some of the more time-consuming steps of garment sewing, the steps that just happen to be key to a product that fits and flatters, were wasted energy.

With the convenient illusions/delusions I’d been relying on shattered, I determined that essential to sailing over my stumbling blocks was a) being better about wardrobe planning as to avoid making garments I don’t reach for because they don’t make sense for my body, style, or lifestyle; and b) being better about sewing toiles, or muslins, as to avoid making garments I shove to the back of the closet because they’re too short or too big or too whatever.

At the beginning of September, I devoted an afternoon to the planning. This entailed doing an honest evaluation of what I own vs. what I wear; identifying garments I’d like to replace and wardrobe gaps I’d like to fill; and figuring out what aesthetic(s) I’m aiming for. That last element was, and remains, the most challenging of the three due to the fact that, as I’ve written before, I’ve never had a great sense of my own style. I am, however, in the initial phases of developing one, and it’s both intimidating and exciting to think that “whatever’s comfortable” doesn’t need to be my default forever. That said, ensuring that it won’t be requires concrete action that’s becoming more urgent to take as I near a milestone birthday for which I’d like to look as good as I feel, i.e., incredible, A+, best ever! (I exaggerate, but just slightly). The thought that complacency or stalling might result in my flopping into the next decade of my life in a pair of ratty Roots sweatpants and a sloppily sewn shirt, the uniform of a certain breed of lazy home sewist, is motivation enough to get going.

Anyway, after generating a list of projects, I matched some of them with beautiful fabric from my stash, metreages I’ve been scared to wreck and thus haven’t touched. To prevent the “wrecking it” part, I then chose less-than-beautiful fabric with which to make toiles.

I think that my willingness to do so is a sign that I’m maturing as a sewist and, more generally, as a human being. I used to consider it against my perfectionist nature to start something with the intention of ripping it apart at the end; now, I recognize that the whole purpose of the toile is to engage in what I’ll call “productive ripping” with the goal of escaping what I’ll call the “unintentional toile”: that is, a garment that’s made of nice fabric but is never worn because it doesn’t quite work. It’s all about the process, yadda yadda yadda, but it’s about the product, too, so I’m leaning into the process and using it as a double-pronged opportunity to hone skills as well as to tweak sizing in order to better guarantee a product that meets my gruellingly high standards. In sum, I’ve convinced myself that it’s my duty as a sewist-in-training to deliberately mess up. In a controlled manner, of course, and only because it’s a means to a more perfect end.

Since making a plan and following through are entirely different beasts, I’m pleased to report that I’ve successfully sewn the first real toile of this stage of my sewing journey. I bestowed this great privilege to Daughter Judy’s Genra Shirt, which had been in my to-be-sewn queue for months. It was a natural candidate for the inaugural toile for reasons of time and necessity. I have it in my head that my outfit for the aforementioned milestone birthday should include a Genra in a gorgeous rayon in my stash that happens to go incredibly well with a pair of trousers I recently sewed and a blazer I thrifted last month; I therefore need a celebration-worthy shirt by early October, mere weeks away. I was furthermore a little intimidated by the pattern and sensed that it would require some adjusting. This made it near-impossible, or at least very foolhardy, to bypass the toile.

For the purpose of toile-ing, I used a cotton-linen blend salvaged from a duvet cover and took my time sewing it up—more time than a toile should probably take, but again, process, learning, etc. It was an approachable, validating challenge in that I found the instructions confusing and counterintuitive in places but was able to trust my gut, consult alternative resources, and muddle through with the comfort of knowing that there was almost nothing on the line, plus the resulting shirt confirmed what I’d suspected: that I had to size down and add a few inches in length. I made those alterations and cut the birthday version yesterday. I told myself that I can get at ’er this afternoon as a reward for writing this post and publishing it, so if you’re reading this now, you can safely assume I’m mid-seam.

I’m sure I won’t be so careful with every toile I sew, and I won’t sew a toile before each and every project. I will, however, when I’m at all uncertain about sizing and/or about other aspects of the pattern in question—or when I simply want a trial run. I’m nonetheless pretty pleased with myself. It was extraordinarily satisfying to sew the last button on this Genra, admire the shirt, fold it up, bid it adieu, and put it in my scraps bag as I reflected on the transient nature of reality and on how some things are impermanent and most expertise less so. Of course, it’ll be a better kind of satisfying when I’m proudly wearing the blouse in which I’ll ring in the next decade of my life—a more-lasting garment that’s benefitted from the toile destined for reincarnation as who knows what: maybe another practice shirt.