Eighty Memories for Eighty Years: #19 Sewing

I am trying write about 80 things in 80 days that have made me happy in my life.

Here is #19 in my list, the 1950's, the decade where I learned to sew.

My dad and mother had limited funds. There were 9 children and lots of needs: food, dental bills, money to pay for lessons, more dental bills. Even with limited funds in the family, my dad said there would be money for fabric for anything the girls wanted to sew. I don’t think that having access to all of that fabric was the reason that I learned to sew. But I did learned to sew early. And true to his word, there was always money for fabric.

When I got to high school I took all of the Clothing and Textiles classes: 10, 20 and 30. I remember two projects specifically. One project I was to take a piece of old clothing and make something new out of it. I asked the teacher whatever to do, and she said to get something wool so that the remade article would last. Wyora found a man’s wool coat that was no longer in use.

I used my seam ripper to take it apart and carefully ironed all of the pieces to see how much fabric I had. That was a project itself. Then I laid out a pattern for a little boy’s tailored coat. I did bound button holes, faced the collar doing a cross-hatch stitch to keep the facing to the underside of the collar and even pick-stitched the lapels and front of that little coat. It had flap pockets, a back belt, and bound button holes. Richard was five years old. He got to wear all of my tailoring skills in that little coat. When I see an old picture of my him with it on, I wonder whatever happened to that coat when he was grew out of it.

I think I have only used my skills from the typing class more than the skills I learned in those sewing classes. Now I don’t want to downplay the academic skills for they are the ones that allowed me to go to university. But the practical skills also seem significant to  me, now that I look back sixty-five years later. Sometimes I regret not taking art classes, or an accounting class as my sister Bonnie did, or music classes where students put on operettas. In those days choices had to be made. Sewing and typing skills have been good for me.

Vogue Pattern Book Design 1958 - 1959 Fashion Design Reference Material

I want to explain the second sewing project I had to do in the last year of Grade XII, at least the other one that sticks in my mind.

We had to construct a formal or a semi-formal ball gown.

I picked out a Vogue pattern with a scalloped buttoned-down front from the neckline to the hem.

I sewed a dress in chiffon with a pink lining, being meticulous with the bound button holes (again), probably 8 or 10 of them down the front of the dress.

 I had the dress on and the teacher was marking the hem for me. She looked up from kneeling on the ground, straight pins in the pin-cushion on her wrist and said to me, “You will be gorgeous at the prom.”

At the prom?

My heart sank. Are you kidding? The idea of ever wearing that dress to any high school prom had never entered my mind, let alone my high school prom.  For one second I thought that wearing the dress was an essential part of passing the class project.

That dress was just a way for me to finish for Sewing 30.

Going go a formal high school dance would have been a stretch for me.

And getting a date?

 How would that have happened. Sixty years later my palms still start to sweat thinking about that.

In my mind only the cheer-leaders and football players teamed up to go to the prom. I was horrified. I had no idea of wearing that dress to a dance ever.

If the project had been make something you will wear, then I would probably have chosen a pleated skirt or a dress coat.

I never wore that dress. I have no idea how many years it hung in a closet, but the closet it hung in was never mine.

However it got me a very good mark in Sewing 30.

Years later, I can say that thinking about learning those sewing skills puts that memory on the list of my eighty good memories for eighty years.

Arta