YardGirl Creations

We can all admit that 2020 was not a great year. It’s been called a wash, a dumpster fire and a shit show, among other names. Most of my conversations about the year have been about how 2020 was supposed to be a transition year and how we were all making big plans for it. I started out making promising moves.

I went to the Baltimore craft show and networked a bit and acquired some very nice pieces to sell in my newly launched online shop, YGC.com. I was inspired and motivated. Unfortunately, those feelings dissolved rapidly. By the middle of the year, which is how long it took me to stop having panic attacks and start functioning again, I had not even photographed the new products to post online. My paperwork fell behind because I’d adopted a feeling of… I actually can’t even put a name to the feeling I had. I remember thinking “none of this stuff is really importance anyway”. People were dying and the country was imploding. There were no design jobs for me because everyone was worried about saving money, including myself.

In my “depression” I looked around the house and realized that I had “too much stuff”, even though I had already done the Maire Kondo thing. So, I started looking through my t-shirt drawer. Everyone has a drawer with old tees that were acquired from random events in life that are not cool enough to actually wear in the street. These shirts are used most often to paint the house or some other messy activity. For some reason I had a lot of kelly green shirts. Kelly green is a decent enough color but It’s just not my jam. I would definitely get rid of them. But what would I do with them? The idea of throwing out perfectly good shirts was outrageous and I was not yet bold enough to leave the house to donate them. I didn’t even think anyone was taking donations at the time because of COVID-19, and “de-cluttering” didn’t mean to fill the house with trash bags of used clothing.

At the same time, I was spending a lot of time in my basement which had just been fitted with a sump pump after several floods. I moved everything to the basement from the guest room, which I referred to as my home office after my son left for college. The virus meant that he would be returning home to finish out the year. I’d decided I will have a legitimate studio space, even though I still had not put up walls. There was no way I’d spend the money to have contractor “spread COVID” for some drywall but I needed a place to be creative since I was stuck in the house and 2020 was supposed to be the year that I focused on my own projects.

I dusted off my sewing machine. I had used it years ago to make little things for the house like curtains and pillows. I looked at it and the green shirts and wrecked my brain for an idea. I didn’t have a lot of lounge cloths, which is funny because I’ve always done a lot of lounging in my life. That was not new in 2020. I decided to try my hand at making a pear if pajama pants out of all those green t-shirts. The end result was not great but it was functional and I found the act of sewing to be very calming. And just like that I was bit by the sewing bug.

After that one pair of pieced together pj pants I decided I was ready to try using a sewing pattern. So I got a craft pattern and used it to create a teddy bear. His name was Bennie and he was made of old jeans that I had stored and saved for a “project” that I had not yet thought of. I am very big on recycling and denim is something that you can always recycle into something else, even if you don’t sew. Bennie needed a companion so I made June Bear. I was obviously inspired by the 1993 film, Benny & Joon . I was so content crafting these unique teddy bears that I created a series of six bears. I named he collection “2^nd Life Bears” and put them up for sale on the shop. I was happy to see how much people liked them. I have ideas for six new bears that I am hashing out since each one is unique and one of a kind it takes a bit of time but I have plenty of it in 2020.

It’s a new year and my optimism is threatening a come back. I have graduated to making actual clothing and plan to have some original pieces for sale in 2021 along with additions to the 2^nd Life Bears collection. This proves that even in a shit show of a year like 2020 there is room to grow and appreciate something new. If we all take the time to open our minds to learn something new the world would be a better place. Here’s to love, peace, and growth in 2021.

Happy New Year,

Sonya