Sewing is on my mind, what with doing a lot of it right now and all.
My mother taught me how to sew. She sews quite well, but doesn’t do it often. I don’t think she’s been much into it since she was out of her twenties. But she did break down and make a prom dress for me for my senior prom.
I had lost my taste for ruffly, frilly numbers or metallic shades of bright pink and blue at a time when they were really fashionable. I saw a pattern for this long, slinky Grecian-inspired dress that I just had to have for a prom dress (in black. I had started a serious black phase), so Mom agreed to make it for me.
It was sooo cool. Looking back, it was a fairly difficult dress to make, though the pattern itself wasn’t too appalling. It was the fabric. The fabric was a slinky knit that is the very devil to sew, especially if you don’t have a serger – which few but the most fanatic of home sewers/quasi-professionals did in the spring of 1987. Mom didn’t have a serger. I didn’t know at the time about this, and Mom has never mentioned it. It’s only knowing what I do now that I can reconstruct this.
What I remember was how awesome it was to have something totally unique to my own tastes.
Ironically, one of the first things I made for myself some five or six years later was pink – a jumper. Mom talked me through it, held my hand through the sewing process, and doing some of the hard parts. Yes, there were parts that were difficult and confusing for me when I was learning to sew! It was this wonderful soft corduroy. The skirt was supposed to be gathered, but we pleated it instead. I forget why, but I’m pretty sure it was a screw-up on me not following directions properly or something. The mistake turned out okay, though.
I wore that jumper out, and kind of miss it. Too bad they aren’t too fashionable right now. Maybe I’ll make another one anyway.