Sewing stories and hand-stitched nostalgia

I've been thinking a lot about sewing and memories and nostalgia lately. Partly this relates to my 'real work' on sewing, where I've thinking about the stories we tell and share about the garments we make. I love that social media has enabled the sharing of our sewing experiences more widely, and that sewing has moved out of the private sphere and into the public - our memories are now not only stitched into the garments we make, but are also woven through the digital stories we tell about them. 

But this little wander down memory lane has also been sparked by a recent inheritance - my Mum's handmade bridesmaid dresses!! Mum was helping Grandma clear out some cupboards recently and I happened to be talking to them both on Skype at the time. The dresses were destined for the secondhand shop where goodness only knows what would have happened to them. I just couldn't let them go! Mum made them herself (and I think her wedding dress...she will no doubt correct me if I've gotten that wrong) and they are genuine 1970s delights! I actually wore the wedding dress itself at high-school in a play (we did the Sound of Music and I was Maria, so I wore the dress to get married on stage. Rather weirdly, the guy they got to play the priest was an actual priest, so it was all very authentic! Poor Mum - I also wore another of her 1970s creations as Maria's "ugly dress"...it was brown with floral and lace. In actual fact, it was probably lovely, and is very likely back in boho fashion now, but in the late 1990s, seen through my teenage eyes, it seemed an ideal Maria look), but I'd never seen the bridesmaid dresses. 

Here they are in 1977 at their original appearance (my two aunts are wearing them - Barbara is the aunt in the yellow, and Joy is wearing the green). 

I can only imagine how giant the heels my Aunty Barbara was wearing...she's under 5ft and that dress is long even on me (at my statuesque 5ft3)! You can see how gloriously late 1970s they are - the high neckline in particular is fabulous. I think Mum's dress was the same pattern. 

Mum and Dad divorced when I was around 11, so to be honest, the dresses don't necessarily have the happiest of memories attached to them in that sense (Grandma was trying to blame the dresses for that bad marital luck, but I'm less convinced of that argument!). 

But I do love that they are a piece of my Mum's (and now my) handmade history. The dresses are so carefully sewn - you can see it in the zigzag stitching along the inside seam allowances and the beautiful rouleau loops and covered buttons Mum made - I just couldn't let them end up rotting away in some second-hand store! 

                             

So now they're mine! What on earth I'm going to do with them I haven't the faintest! I had originally thought perhaps to make a sundress out of the fabric - there's plenty of it. But now I'm not sure I like the idea of cutting into Mum's handiwork. Do I really need a sundress in 1970s poly crepe, or would they be better kept for posterity?! Or is it adding to their story to refashion them into something new? I'm not yet sure. Any ideas or suggestions are welcome! 

While I decide, here are some pics of me dressing up 1970s-style! (I'm wearing the highest wedges I had in my wardrobe and there's still a good 4 inches of fabric on the ground! I couldn't fit into the yellow one. My Aunty Barb is super tiny)

Are you looking at me? Step back! (Getting my 1970s Fierce Side-Eye on)

Ohmygod Mulder - it's a UFO!

No, that's a UFO no more!

When I had my sewing crisis of faith a while back, I properly tidied my office/sewing room (which at that point had literal piles of fabric in heaps on the floor and desk, patterns and sewing magazines stacked precariously in the gaps in between, and random threads and zips floating about). It was actually a little scary. In the cleaning process, I rediscovered my box of UFOs and decided that I either needed to accept defeat with them (was I really ever going to wear this?) or finish them. Some were beyond help and are now cut up into pieces I can reuse for other things. But others I decided I should finish, and when I did that, I rediscovered one dress in particular that I've fallen back in love with.

I had great hopes for this fabric when I bought it - I loved the bold deco print and was determined to carefully pattern match it perfectly. But somehow when I started this dress (probably a year ago), I got into a total hissy fit over it. Yelling and rage. I felt that despite all my best pattern-matching efforts, I'd made a massive cock-up and it looked shit. So I threw it in the UFO box in disgust and have ignored it ever since.

But when I 'found' it again, I realised that, actually, it wasn't so bad. It was...maybe...good, even?! Ok, maybe not perfect, but the centre front is pretty damn good and for the rest of it, well, who the hell cares?! Have you looked at the pattern matching (or rather total lack thereof) in RTW clothes? Clothing retailers don't care, so why the hell should I kill myself for perfection when I'm not much bothered either? This fabric is bold and different and I like it. All I needed to do was hem it and finish the necklines and armholes (because in the UFO phase, I lost the sleeve pieces. I keep losing sleeve pieces! Must pay better attention).

Yay, insta-dress!

I also finished off a test version of the Anna dress that I'd hacked onto a Megan skirt. This is a pattern combo I think I like, but I don't like this particular version (the fabric is a bit blergh). Still, it's nice to have finished it and know that for sure. And the fit of the bodice with no alterations is bloody perfect (ignore the weird neckline - that's a facing problem). I just bought some new fabric to make my first 'real' Anna dress and I'm very excited for it!

And the last finished UFO. This is henceforth to be known as my Rat Bastard Top. It's the ill-fated Wren dress which I adjusted with some bust darts, and then shortened. Initially I shortened it to an above the knee dress but I still hated it, so figured it might work as a top with jeans and a cardy. It's ok. I have so much hatred towards it though (hemming this bastard was a total nightmare of snapped threads and snagged fabric and general cursing). But it's a decent-enough top if you don't look too closely. And at least it's finished.

I find there's a catharsis to finishing things that have long languished in a box. It's not just a new dress and a new top. It's given me a sense of satisfaction and quiet, and I needed both of those this week. It's been an up and down week work-wise (mostly great swooping downs), but sewing has been a little pocket of creativity and calm in the middle of all of that. I'm grateful to have that in my life. 

In which I rediscover my sewing groove

So it's been a while.

In part this is because I've had 2 back-to-back nasty colds (one of which is still lurking, dammit to lurgy hell) and so I didn't really have the energy to be sewing, or blogging. Blowing my nose has occupied an inordinately large amount of my time lately.

But in truth, the bigger reason for my radio sewing silence has been that whole 'sewing nothing but horrible shit' thing. It also got worse after I blogged last (the details of my latest utter balls up will be fodder for another post - I'm hoping to find a fix before I post on that!), so I really was in a total fury.

There are lots of blogs and magazine articles out there which talk about how to find your sewing groove again (they tend to call it 'finding your sewjo' but that term makes me feel mildly nauseous. Ick), and going back to a tried and true pattern is meant to be a good approach. So I ordered some fabric I liked with the plan of making a new Moneta, and sure enough, it has HEALED me! Here's the remedy garment for my sewing blues:

I completely love it. I had to cut a straight rectangle of fabric for the skirt, rather than using the Moneta skirt pattern as it is curved and I really really wanted the lines at the bottom to form the hem. Because that meant the skirt was a bit more narrow than normal, I omitted the pockets which is probably the one thing I'm sad about (because I lurrve pockets. Pockets on everything I say). So. I'm Healed. Jess got her groove back.

Since then I've been finishing off some UFOs (which I'll blog about another day) and that's felt quite good too - productive and efficient. And at the weekend, I was lucky enough to be up in Leeds visiting the lovely Shauni of Magnificent Thread who kindly took me around the fabric shops in town. I got some lovely teal knitted jersey which was intended for a cardigan, and on my drive back south, I called into Fabworks fabric mill shop (because it wasn't far off my route so what choice did I have!?) and there I got the softest, snuggliest brushed cotton fabric. I had no plan at all of putting the two together - but they are a born match! The outfit combo was obvious as soon as I got them home and looked at them. Love it when that happens!

So, I normally work from home quite a bit, and particularly so at the moment as I'm on sabbatical. I joke about working in my pjs, but in all honesty, I do always get dressed. But pjs are comfy, you know? I basically want clothes that offer the comfort of pjs without looking like you're actually in pjs (because the postman just doesn't need to see that everyday!). In summer this is easy, because I can wear jersey dresses, but at the moment I find it's too damn cold.

The Seamwork Moji pants offer pj-like appeal but because of their tapered leg and pockets, they're just a bit more stylish I think - I wouldn't be embarrassed answering the door in them. And to match, I fancied a cardi. I do have the Jenna cardi pattern, but I haven't yet printed it or pieced it together. But this month's Love Sewing magazine has the pattern for a McCall's cardigan - hurrah, no pdf to deal with! It's not actually my usual style tbh, but it's perfect for snuggling up in at home (and NO PDF. Win).

I'm really pleased with the whole ensemble, and the fit of both garments. I took an inch out of the body pieces and sleeves of the cardigan, plus I left the cuffs off (because even with an inch off the length, the cuffless sleeves were still long enough). The instructions were a bit spartan compared to my Indy-pattern norm (I'm so spoiled) but I'm quite proud that I managed to get it all together without drama. I also set the sleeves in flat because who can be arsed with easing in jersey sleeve heads?!

The Moji pants are a straight size 6 and I just put an elastic waistband on instead of draw-string because while elasticated waists are the least attractive thing in the world, they are comfortable and quite frankly, they keep your damn pants up. I only bought 1m of fabric so I didn't have enough to attempt pattern matching, but I don't really care! The cat sees me most and she doesn't appear offended by my mismatched plaid.

Hurrah cosy warm clothes that are super comfy and don't look entirely like pjs (ok, they look a wee bit like pjs, but I promise not to sleep in them!)!

And here we have the academic-on-sabbatical in her natural habitat.