When the season turns and the weather changes it’s not always easy to revel in the great outdoors. Blustery rain, keening winds and chilly dampness curb our enthusiasm for getting out and about.
Our thoughts turn to the warmth and snugness of indoors – but what then? How can we retain our sense of calm and relaxation?
Needlework might not be the first thing you think of.
But stitching can be immensely relaxing.
It can be simple; it can be complicated. Large or small. Whatever you choose it is almost certain to provide therapy for beginners or experts – there are projects that can be undertaken by all.
Stitching has long been recognised as a way of relaxing and reducing stress. Soldiers returning from traumatic service during WW1 stitched to aid recovery from the horrors they had been through.
The simple act of drawing thread through fabric, the gentle repetition and gradual evolution of pattern or picture helped calm and still the mind.
It continues to be popular today as a meditative and soothing practice.
Stores specialising in haberdashery (small items used in sewing, such as buttons, zips, and thread) used to be widespread in the days when households were more self reliant on making clothes, knitting garments, mending and decorating household items that were expensive to replace.
The traditional haberdasher is now much harder to find but they can still be found in some of the larger department stores. Specialist craft stores will stock almost anything you might need to embark on an absorbing project. Just browsing these wonderful emporiums can be therapeutic. In a recent newspaper article one commentator has asks, ‘Is loitering in the haberdashery the ultimate path to happiness?’
Jane Shilling goes on to write of these wonderful treasure troves as ‘an entire emotional ecology, built of ribbons and 4-ply merino knitting wool.’ She quotes John Betjaman as having said that when Armageddon comes ‘he would like it to find him in the haberdashery department of Peter Jones since nothing unpleasant could happen there.’
Indeed, there is something unforgettable about haberdashery departments – the clean scent of fresh linen unrolled from its bolt.
The myriad colours and shades of threads, ribbons and wools. The intricacies of lace edgings and pompoms, rosettes and gimps. The tactile satisfaction of a box of buttons.
As a child I recall playing with a box of collected buttons belonging to my mother. She had worked in the 1950s in one of the London couture houses and all sorts of unwanted scraps of material, surplus sequins and discarded buttons made their way into her possession. She’d use them for making dolls’ dresses, embellishing a fancy dress costume or smartening up some worn and out-of-style piece of clothing to transform it into something exotic and exciting.
Why not create your own collection of sewing and haberdashery goodies?
Scraps of material, half-used reels of cotton, balls of wool, embroidery threads, buttons and beads – a joyful array of delights to help the imagination run riot as you create your own original masterpiece…