Garment Design: Gourmet Edition

I did break down and make myself this
sleeveless maternity dress, even though I
was 8.5 months pregnant at the time.

I'm doing the thing right now, where I'm delaying making nice things for myself because I feel the need to clean my house first, and then I don't want to make anything for my body in this size, and feel like I should save that silk noil until I've lost a bit of chub. Which is why I don't sew enough clothes for myself.

But while I was obsessing over this false choice, I hit upon a metaphor, which demanded to be blogged. So here I am, to talk about Garment Design.

Sewing for your family is like cooking for your family. Buying clothes off the rack is like buying processed, ready-to-eat food. Hey, we're all busy moms, and mouths must be fed, bums must be covered, right? (Sometimes, if you're going to a really nice store when a cheap one would suffice, it's like eating out. And that's just something you have to do every now and then.) With the decline in teaching the art of sewing - why, school systems, did you ever banish Home Economics? - people turn to off-the-rack as the staple of their wardrobe, and I really feel like this is negatively affecting the nutritional content of our dressing habits, so to speak. There is a diminished ability to express personal style, the quality of off-the-rack clothing is usually fairly poor, and changing trends can make shopping a nightmare for the choosy wearer, or one with "special dietary needs" (i.e. a larger, curvier figure, or the opposite).

This is me just making stuff up

Next comes sewing your own. Here's where I start to sound snooty - the culinary equivalent of sewing from a pattern is baking a cake from a cake mix. The patterns are designed to end up just like off-the-rack clothing. That means that they are all drafted to fit a b-cup bust size, among other drawbacks. Some will have those helpful recipe add-in suggestions on the box, such as how to alter a bust-line, or lengthening and shortening lines. But unless you've trained yourself in pattern alterations, they're not going to be very personal.

It turned into a wedding dress for my sister, which was
supposed to look like it was stitched  out of leaves.

What I mostly do is like cooking from a good recipe book. I mix and match my patterns, taking a sleeve from here, a neckline from there, use a tiered skirt instead of a straight skirt, and I lengthen everything, like I always add extra butter to my food. Sometimes I'll improvise a pan sauce, drafting a new piece or slipping in a pocket, replacing the zipper with buttons. It gives a wider scope for my ideas to take shape, and it also cuts down on the number of patterns I have to store. If I really want to make something again, I'll start by drafting my FrankenPattern onto muslin, which clips together with a big safety pin and doesn't need to be pinned to your fabric when cutting.

OK, yes, that is a zipper. I made two ball gowns in one day,
all right? I had to take a short cut.

Every once in a while, when I want something really unique, I'll just make it all up, such the Zuko costume for my son. My daughters attend an English Country Dance once a year, which requires (well, it's "optional", but we're us) Regency Era Dress, and since authentic patterns are hard to come by, I look in my Patterns of Fashion reproduction manual, and drape the patterns right there on their bodies, which is loads of fun. True cooking from scratch.

The final option is Thrifting, which I consider to be the equivalent of foraging in the wild, or growing your own food. I'm bad at all of those, so I'm just going to give it a passing nod of utmost respect.

Tune in next time for a pompous discourse on sourcing your ingredients.

On Easter Dresses: or, Why Do We Tear Each Other Down When We Could Build Each Other Up Instead?

When I was a very young mom, with no car and few social skills, all the women I knew were either single college students or the wives of my only-just-former college professors and had busy schedules and a million children. As a result, I was alone, a lot. My husband had two jobs and was trying to finish college himself, so he had only so much to give me, and my baby was All Things Miraculous, but even she couldn't talk in full sentences until she was 18 months old, plus she is an introvert. She didn't like even mamma getting all up in her space.

So I learned how to sew.

It was an uphill road. Being the clever person that I am, I assumed I knew better than the pattern designers, mostly because I didn't acknowledge things like grain lines, and my early efforts were mostly Lessons Learned The Hard Way, and not actual usable pieces of clothing. But because I was lonely, bored and desperate, I kept at it. I probably learned twenty or so lessons The Hard Way before I produced a single thing I could use or wear.

One of the things I have continually dedicated myself to over the years is the creation of Easter Dresses. I love Easter, and all the things it promises. I didn't have the budget to make it more special than Christmas in the same manner as Christmas, so I had to get creative (my specialty!) and one of the ways was to make matching dresses for all the girls, beginning with my first and myself. (I stopped making dresses for myself after two, though.)

Easter Skirts

As my skills developed, the dresses got nicer and nicer. My adorable three little girls all had completely different coloring - a blond with grey eyes, a redhead and all that that entails, and a dark brunette with alabaster skin. My approach was to find the same print in different colors, and make dresses from the same pattern. In later years, when they started to have vastly differing tastes in clothing, I went exactly the other way, and started choosing a color palette, and making them totally different styles of dress. But I kept it up, year after year, even if it meant doing everything during Holy Week. It is a project that means a lot to me.

Well, one year my ever-expanding repertoire of skillz reached the stage of including smocking, thanks to one of my crafting gurus - Maureen, who also helped teach me to quilt and has inspired me in so many other ways. I was pregnant and feeling sick during Lent, so I spent many hours curled up in my chair, hand-smocking some muslin panels. It's probably the earliest I ever started on dresses, and it took a lot of time, but the results were deeply satisfying, and I dressed them in t heir smocked dresses whenever I had an excuse.

One day I took them to the library, because our wonderful dear children's librarian had asked me specifically to show her my Easter Dresses. In we filed, splendidly arrayed in smocked dresses and little white gloves and straw hats with matching ribbons. (Hey, when you go to that much trouble, you take it all the way, right?) It was Story Time Day, so a lot of other moms were there, and one said to me "Please don't tell me you smocked those dresses by hand." So proud of myself, I told her that I did.

She said "I hate you."




Looking back on it, I know why she said it, and she meant to be funny, I'm sure. She was tired, she had that difficult blend of older children that keep you running and tiny babies that keep you up at night, and she is also a woman that loves beautiful things - she grows a lovely garden in the spring - and not enough time to fulfill that love. She didn't know what I gave up to make those dresses, because it's not like I go around showing people pictures of my mountain of laundry or the unswept kitchen or the uncategorized piles of papers and books... I sacrificed to make this a priority. I knew she didn't mean it. But wow, did it hurt. In fact, I'm sure she's forgotten the incident completely. (Hey, it might be you!)




The Thing is, just as we don't see those background sacrifices, that different ordering of priorities, we also don't see what kind of power our words can have. I carried that "I hate you" around for a long time in my heart, believing that I must have done something wrong, that my creative drive was somehow blameworthy because of the things I let go. I often lock myself into a place where I'm "not allowed" to make anything or buy anything until I've done X amount of housework. It never works. In fact, one time I actually got my entire house clean AT THE SAME TIME but still didn't sew because of the guilt block. Every time I sat down to make something, I felt badly. That "I hate you" became the Voice of Bob. He was right on top of that one. Alongside "You never finish what you start," it's one of my most deeply rooted Bobisms.


I'm working on it, though. I'm learning to let myself be, to recognize what people mean when they say things like that. And I'm trying to be very, very careful about what I say when I wish I could do what someone else can do.

My beautiful Audrey, recycling dresses from
last year. This year, I actually DIDN'T MAKE ANY,
and my lovely Helen wore this dress.

Inspiration, my Muse, my Fickle Mistress

I am a slave. She rules me, and without her command, and her breath of life, my creations are wearisome and fruitless toil, if indeed I am able to put my hands to work at all. Inspiration, vision, magic – I don’t know what to call her, my mistress. But she is cruel and inconstant.

A sampler quilt built around the traditional
"Log Cabin" pattern, made as a baby gift for no good reason
(which is the best reason)

Sometimes, I’m struck with an idea. Who knows why? But I have to make it, like, right now. If the yarn shop is closed, or I can’t drive out to the fabric store, I’ll pore restlessly over my stash, desperate to find the right colors or textures. Out comes the graph paper, the ruler, dozens of colored pencils picked over and discarded until just the right shades are found. I’ll add, multiply, divide (inexpertly), sketch, cut, crumple, experiment until – at last! –a pattern comes out, a quilt-top drafted, a neckline perfected, or a swatch knitted up and ready to dive in. What prompted it? Maybe, this time, a baby was born whose name means House of God, and I NEED to make a Log Cabin quilt. Perhaps a little girl I know finally has a baby sister, and if they don’t get handmade matching dresses, the whole world will be thrown out of balance.

Other times, it’s no matter how much I want to come out with something brilliant, or even Nice. My sister, my dearest friend, at once my kindred spirit and my polar opposite (but more kindred than pole), had a baby girl, and asked me to be the Godmother. Highly sensible of the honor, I declared “I shall make her a blanket.” Well, that was three years ago, and there is no blanket. In fact, I just had the perfect idea for it today, after trying out and discarding half a dozen ideas. (She has since also had a son, and HIS baby quilt is in the works, because… well, because I was inspired.)

It’s not fair, it’s irritating, and it makes me feel bad when inspiration fails. On the flip side, dear Bob, that Log Cabin quilt I made opened the door to a friendship that was basic at the time, but has since flowered into something I would sorely miss now. When the inspired things do pop out, they are Just The Thing. All we really have to do in this life is the job that’s in front of us. I don’t know why this job plunks itself in my lap and not that one, but this is the sweater I have to knit, this is the nose I have to wipe, this is the lunch date I have to make (this is the midnight blog post I have to write). It feels right to go with it.

And this is why I’ll never be a business owner. And why I wouldn’t have it any other way.

This is How It's Done, people.

My eldest's offering for a bake sale.

“To Fangirl” (etymology fr English coll “fan” abbreviated form of “fanatic,” and “gurle,” ME, a young person of either sex) is a verb my daughters use to describe the inordinate delight taken in certain fictional subjects. At its most basic, it is the Squee Instinct. It’s been a thing for a long, long time. The modern young woman fangirls about Sherlock (the BBC show), Dr Who, Loki (or other Avengers/super heroes), and so on. You’ve seen the t-shirts. The litmus test is this: is there fan fiction? Then it’s fangirl territory. The word can also be used as a noun.

Skyward Sword Link and Zelda

Consistency is important to the fangirl. Even if you’re just making stuff up yourself, you have to take every canonical (e.g. actually written by Stephen Moffat) happening into account, and characters must not act outside of their usual mode, unless they are hypnotized by an alien or drugged. And if you’re going to dress up, you HAVE to get it exactly right. And someday, you’re going to find yourself dressing up, so you’d better build up your wardrobe skillz now. And that would be my department.

Around here, we start ‘em young, and we feed them only the finest material. My little ones’ favorites are Legend of Zelda and Avatar: the Last Airbender. I dare not say a word against it, because hey, someone has to play the video game (that would be me), and Avatar is actually a really good show. (I might write a whole blog post about it later.) And the costumes… well, let’s just say I’ve never had to think very hard about what to get my kids for their birthdays.

My latest - my son specified the Season One Prince Zuko.
It should be clear by now where my kids learn their fangirling from.

My first major sewing project ever.
I totally altered the pattern, too,
to make it more like the movie. 

Replication is a skill set in its own right. It’s one thing to go down to the Disney store and buy the approximately-colored dress with the right princess face on it (that is the current way to distinguish between princesses at Disney) and make your little girl happy. That’s just fine. Children are happy at the end. But I got my first taste of replication when my eldest turned 4, and I never looked back...

When my son wanted to be Sheriff Woody for Hallowe'en, I couldn’t just get the costume that was an image of the cartoon representation of the toy of the puppet of the person, silk-screened onto a jumpsuit. Even though there may have never been a Real Person Sherriff Woody before, there is now, and my son was him. Actual blue jeans, a proper shirt, separate cowboy vest, nice boots, and a real bandanna. That’s how we roll. (Full disclosure: I bought the printed jumpsuit for Buzz Lightyear. Dammit Jim, I’m a seamstress, not an engineer.)

 My only real regret is that when I made a Princess Aurora gown, I gave in and made it pink. A Real Replicator would have known to make it blue, like it is for most of the movie, including the whole time she is sleeping. (No, I'm not posting a picture of that one. Bob will eat me.)

About Knitting

Knitting is the newest tool in my beauty box. I tried when I was a kid, but my work kept getting wider and wider as I went. It wasn't until I was teaching my own child how to knit with rainbow variegated yarn that I saw where I had been picking up stitches - there, right in the middle of my yellow stitches, was a loop from the purple row below! Now I had the Key!

It was still a while before I realized the versatility of my newfound skill. It could be functional:

(but really, really boring to make - 
those last hundred hours couldn't have gotten any slower. 
I still can't believe I finished the whole thing!)

It could be whimsical:

(that's a pig.)

It could be cosy and comfortable, yet decorative and full of flair:

(I haven't yet made the match to this, so you only get to see one.)

Depending on what you choose to make, it can be meditative, engaging, challenging or consuming. It's handily portable. Hand knit items make great gifts. Beautiful yarn feels wonderful in your hands. You can work a bit at a time. And you're spared the crocheter's constant agony of people asking "What are you knitting?"

I use Knitter's Pride "Dreamz" polished wood needles (hey, I didn't name them), because they feel really nice, and stay put in my work, unlike aluminum needles. Also unlike aluminum, they don't have an irritating clicky noise - I think of aluminum as the Plastic of Metals. Ew. Using circular needles keeps me secure in the knowledge that it will be really, really hard for curious little fingers to pull the needles out of my work and ruin everything.

These days, besides a small piglet-in-process that I carry in my purse all the time, I am busily exploring a new dimension of knitting - airy soft and whispery delicate:

This is a lace stole from this book, which I've had for years and years and always wanted to try. The yarn is a mohair/silk blend - it's very hairy - with a bit of silvery sparkle just for fun.

So far, I've made about seven major errors. I recount at the end of every other row, and I've gone back and unpicked a few times (the yarn is too hairy to rip back, so lifelines are useless), but mostly I just mark the spot and correct on the next row. And you know what? It Doesn't Show At All.