New Year, Recharged Joy
A decluttered house brings forth a warm state of mind
Hello everyone, we are now in 2024. I hope the first few days of January have treated you well. The seemingly endless purging, cleaning, and reorganizing activities of December was physically exhausting. However, now that I’m starting to reap the fruits of my labor, I’m really grateful for being able to do the decluttering in the first place.
I feel humbly happy for being able to do a couple exhibitions, take away joyful energy and inspirations, interpret and implement them in several spaces within my home. Such precious, sustained joy doesn’t come easy at all.
On this month’s issue, I’m going to share:
Hint for next week’s issue! (Yes, you read that right.)
Last but not least, I’m sharing my well wishes for us all in 2024.
For the house, with love: decorating and textile upcycling
You’ve seen the in-progress mess last month. Now, let me share with you some result highlights. They can be categorized into two areas - workspace and reading room reorganization, and textile upcycling for the home.
Workspace Reorganization and Decoration
The image you saw above is one example! I relocated and rearranged our four bookcases (purchased secondhand from a neighboring town) side-by-side. I also got indigo tie dye samples from my Buy Nothing group, and I displayed them in frames above the shelves.
In the same space, I dedicated a corner to showcase an antique architect’s drawing table. To make an enclosed corner, I layered a pieced-together half curtain and displayed snake plants in homemade pottery planters. Both the table and the planters are gifted from my Buy Nothing group. On the adjacent wall, I framed three artworks by Julia prints, which I got a couple of years ago. I’m glad they are now properly displayed!
The eagle-eyed reader would notice a small decor on the center right. It’s an antique miniature US mail box decor made out of metal. One can insert coins through the mail slot. Neat, right?
Nearby, I placed a vintage typewriter and a couple of miniature pumpkins. If you guessed that I got those items from my Buy Nothing group, you are absolutely correct!
Mini Doses of Joy in the Reading Room
Two years ago, I purchased a tiered shelves from a neighbor a couple blocks away. After being in the purgatory (read: garage) all this time, I finally dedicated some time to restain the wood with dark walnut color, and my husband helped me cut some 0.25” - 0.5” thick wood sheet scraps into shelves. The flat shelves are perfect to hold our printer papers, as well as photo albums and reading materials with sentimental value!
The tiered case came with a couple of bins that I decoupaged with some washi papers in my stash. They now hold throw blankets, a small pillow, and guest slippers.
I love the shape of this tiered structure. The top parts lends themselves nicely for books and additional decor touches. I created a mini “hidden decor” treat reserved for the couch sitter next to the tiered shelves.
Behind the short pile of books, there’s a repaired handmade Mexican trasterito, which I completed with a mini carpet cut from a vintage textile.
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Designing and Sewing Home Textiles
The two exhibitions I did last year unleashed my reservations about making more home textiles. The dam broke. Armed with abundant stash of newly acquired cotton canvas cutoffs (50% of which I shared with multiple neighbors), I just ran with the idea and dedicated time each day to address what the house items need.
First is a piecing together black cotton canvas cutoffs to provide a base for a vintage hand-drawn batik fabric showing map of Indonesia. This is one of many batik treasures that a good friend gave me a couple of months ago, and I’m super stoked to properly display it in the house!
I basted the map onto the base fabric and attached the unit on the wall in the reading room with the help of 3M Command strips.
I received a healthy amount of said black canvas, so I also created custom “hat” for our portable ACs. Laying dormant in our reading room, they have top cover with encased elastic string to prevent dust / unwanted particle accumulation inside the otherwise uncovered top vent.
Speaking of furniture beanies, I also made one for our tea table. Usually more actively used during summer months, this table is stored flat leaning against the wall with the canvas beanie on top, behind the architect’s table. This keeps it unscratched as well as prevents damage on the wall.
For lighter weight fabrics, I made curtains for our back windows. Made with light yellow cotton foile, they are each held simply by 4 ft. 7/16” dowel rod and a couple of 17 x 1.25” wire nails.
I used the same lightweight cotton voile to create base layer for our new noren. The main fabric is a Japanese silk fabric (2011 stock). It felt really nice to finally make something with some fabrics I acquired during my travel. I got this woven beauty during my visit to Tokyo Flea Market in 2016.
Last but not least, I made a couple of pillow and body pillow cases. This fabric may seem familiar, because it is the same teal fabric as my jumpsuit prototype.
Insights from My 2023 Design & Sewing Projects
After all that’s said, planned, and done, below is the breakdown of home textile items that I managed to do last month.
Zooming out a little bit, there were 17 home textile projects out of 61 design and sewing projects I did last year.
If you’re curious about the project type breakdowns, here it is!
Since most projects I did were garments, I dissected them further into my 3 categories of textile upcycling:
It is no surprise that most of my Reimagine garment projects were tops. Making new garments by piecing cutoffs takes a lot of time, and tops are the most practical to create. On the accessories side, making bags is also a no-brainer. It’s relatively straightforward and functional, and suitable to give away as presents!
I had many pants to repair this year. As expected, more so than any other garment types, bottoms (pants, skirts) worked really hard in 2023. It’s only natural they’d wear out and in need of repair. How about you? Do you do many garment repairs in 2023?
It’s amazing that while I started learning to sew by refashioning pre-owned clothes, I have done this long enough that I did relatively few refashioning projects last year. That said, it’s part of my DNA and I’m always going to refashion, year after year.
One last thing to note is my shift to consciously use natural fibers more and more. Starting this year, I’m going to document my fiber use more closely. Instead of the simple natural or synthetic division, I’d record what fiber I use (cotton, linen, silk, rayon, polyester, etc.) I think you readers would find the data more useful!
So please look forward to it.
NEXT WEEK: Interview with Modern Meadow
As I hinted at the beginning, this will not be the only newsletter issue of January 2024! Next week, look forward to my interview with Modern Meadow CEO, Catherine Roggero-Lovisi. It will be the first newsletter issue that gives you insight from leaders of textile innovations, an area that will be key to our fashion future. Please look forward to it! This post will be free for a week. After that, it will be available for paid subscribers only.
ABOUT MODERN MEADOW:
Modern Meadow is a sustainable bio-design technology company that uses nature-inspired proteins to develop solutions that reduce our reliance on petrochemical and animal-derived inputs. Its scalable products drop into existing manufacturing processes, allowing partners to bring sustainable goods to market quickly and without high upfront costs. The company aims to drive innovation in sustainability and create new solutions for the world's most pressing challenges.
Learn more at www.modernmeadow.com.
Well Wishes for 2024
With that, I’m going to end this issue with some well wishes for 2024. I got a couple of wayang golek* wooden puppets from Kimberly Kuniko of Lacelit last November. Yes, she’s also the one that gave me the Indonesian map fabric.
Wayang golek is a traditional puppet art form in West Java, Indonesia. A skilled puppeteer would animate a bunch of them to deliver a riveting story (that can last for hours) in a puppet theater setting. This art form is popular in West Java and its cultural heritage is recognized by UNESCO. “Wayang” means shadow or imagination, and “golek" means to seek.
They came to me in good condition with minimal imperfections, however their outfits were getting frail and faded. Making new outfits for these two wooden puppets is just what I needed to welcome 2024. I imbued my wishes for new year with patterns and materials I chose for these two.
The bride wears a sleeveless and open back tunic made with Japanese kimono cotton remnant. The edges are embellished with a handmade necklace from Istanbul, Turkey. Both represents my desire to keep expanding my horizons and build respect to global cultures. I wish this for you readers, as well.
The rich print of her skirt is a combination of “truntum” and “semen rama” patterns. “Truntum” symbolizes blossoming love and harmony. As my husband and I continue to tackle challenging yet meaningful and necessary discussions, I hope we have loving fuel to keep our relationship healthy. I wish you have good, loving relationships with people around you, readers.
“Semen rama” symbolizes leadership, something I’d like to return and hone further this year, both in personal and career choices. For those of you looking for change of career or upward mobility, I will wish this for you as well.
The groom wears a jacket made with Japanese kimono cotton remnant with wide stripe motifs. It emulates “kain lurik”, a popular traditional Javanese menswear fabric choice. The vertical stripes encourage the wearer to be in good relationship with and respect the Higher Power. I wish this not only for myself, but also for humanity.
The groom’s skirt has bold, beautiful flowery motifs on top of vines background, which signifies pursuit of happiness. I doubled down on this wish by hand stitching rosette trims on the jacket’s lapels. Of course, I wish this for everyone!
So those are my new year wishes! What about yours? Now that we are several days into 2024, I hope your wishes and aspirations are gradually coming true!
Thank you so much for reading; until next time,
Mira Musank
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Friendddd, what a delight to pour over this thoughtful post and find so much inspiration waiting. Your bookshelf is #dreamgoals for me, (and it made me so happy to see my “together” lily pads tucked cozily into one of your shelves!).
Getting to see what you’ve done for my aunt’s puppets and how they’re being celebrated is so meaningful. Thank you for sharing this, friend!