how to love a sweatshirt.

the joy of making things for myself.

I found a smiley face sweatshirt on a stoop last weekend. As New Yorkers seeking an extra few square inches of space in their homes are known to do, someone had left the sweatshirt with a small pile of other items in hopes that someone like me might scoop it up.

When practiced judiciously, I love this approach to rehoming belongings. It allows for serendipity and surprise for the person who stumbles across the loot and it gets items directly in the hands of whoever is interested enough to stop and pick them up. Unlike dumping sacks full of clothing with the nearest clothing collection organization and crossing your fingers your castoffs won’t join the heaps of American textile waste threatening local textile industries and traditions overseas, a single sweatshirt left on a stoop has a chance of being loved, or at least worn, closer to home. For me this week, altering that item with still more would-be textile waste made it all the better.

When I shared my altered sweatshirt in a video on Instagram yesterday, a couple of grouchy (insert your choice of more acerbic adjective here) commenters let me know that the collage of scraps was not to their taste. I couldn’t help but think that that’s precisely the point. I added this particular collection of shapes and colors and textures to this sweatshirt because it is to my taste. As I toyed with various options and swapped out different scraps until I found a composition that I liked, I wasn’t thinking about anyone’s taste or wardrobe but my own. As I’ve written so many times before, it’s so freeing to make something for yourself precisely because you can make it to your very own specifications. I’m not trying to sell this sweatshirt or replicate it. The only market research I needed to conduct was regarding my very own brain. All told, shaping this sweatshirt into something I could enjoy wearing was the simple, joyful, and fulfilling work of an hour’s time and it was such a refreshing reminder of why gathering a few simple and useful skills can open up a whole world of making, but also self-expression.

For anyone looking to attempt something similar, here are some loose step-by-steps and inexpert tips from me to you. I hope you make something you love.