Recently I took a Sunday off from being the church musician to have a
weekend of personal time. I had hoped to make a weekend trip to Fort Worth , but was still
sewing on my granddaughter’s prom dress. I finally wrapped that project up on Friday.
Now I had the matching purse to make.
I talk a good game when I say I’m going to be a slug on a
day free of pre-determined chores and errands when I state I am going to sleep
a little late, drink a whole pot of coffee while I catch up on television
movies and favorite shows and float around in my bathrobe until I feel like
getting ready to look human. Well, that never happens, and it didn’t on the Sunday in question.
My house partner returned from church to discover me in the
television room with huge boxes open and piles of packages sorted in various
stacks. I was in the process of doing something I had been saying I would do
the moment I had a chance. I was sorting the collection of clothing patterns I
had amassed over the years.
I come from a long line of seamstresses. I spent many years watching my mother sew. I stood at her elbow and bugged her, constantly asking when my
new dress would be finished. By the time I was in sixth grade, she got tired of
me bothering her and told me to sit down at the desk and start doing it myself.
I did. Nuff said. I had learned so much by just watching her that I was
able to tackle part of the project without asking many questions. I wasn’t
perfect because real clean, straight stitching and sleeves set in arm holes
require a certain level of skill. But, by the time I was in eighth grade I was
making most of my every day clothes for school. Mother was still doing the
fancy Easter and Christmas outfits. She even made purses to match. Of course, we were fairly poor, so the quality of the fabric we used
made it obvious I was a little different from classmates whose mothers also
sewed. They could afford the material that cost by the single yard, not
ten yards for one dollar.
When I hit high school, all girls were required to take Home
Economics. I was bored out of my mind. My first sewing project was a straight
skirt with an elastic waist band, one seam down the back and a slip stitch hem. A totally plebeian assignment. We took our fabric to school on Monday for approval. I had my pattern
for said skirt and a blue swatch of fabric and a red swatch. I received
approval on both and took my project home for the week.
Upon returning to school on Friday to model our skirts, my
teacher singled me out and told me to wait in her office. Everyone modeled the
skirts and received their grades. My sharp eye noticed droopy hems, seams that weren’t straight - you name it, I made a mental
list of the flaws. I was critiquing the whole lot in my brain while, at the
same time, rolling around in my head why I had been sent to the Home Ec office.
Upon returning to her office the teacher told me to come with her to the
principal’s office. I asked why, and her response was that I wasn’t going to
pass my mother’s sewing off as my own. I protested that I made my outfit. She
looked at me sporting my full suit of a lined skirt with a zipper, a lined
jacket and a cute blouse that coordinated. I tried to explain that I had been
sewing since sixth grade, but she wasn’t hearing it. We marched down to the
main office where she proceeded to call my mother at the elementary school
where mother worked as a secretary. That conversation went like this:
Teacher (I had a better title for her, but will be polite):
Mrs. Earles, this is Mrs. So-And-So with the high school. Yes, Cheryl’s Home
Economics teacher. Cheryl had a project to make a skirt this week and I have a
problem with the project she has presented.
Mom: Oh? I know she worked all week on her project.
Teach: Well, if she did, she didn’t present it today for her
grade.
Mom: Really? That’s not like her.
Teach: She came in wearing an outfit and tried to pass off
your work as hers.
Mom: No, that can’t be. I didn’t sew anything this week. She
made two full suits this week. A red one and a blue one. Which one did she wear
to school?
Needless to say I had to look down and appear to be humble
when I was actually trying hide my glee in my victory. It was tough to keep the
smirk off my face. That teacher hated me from that day forward. We were both
thrilled the day that class ended.
So, back to my project of the boxes full of patterns. In the process of
caring for mother and closing down the house, I ended up with all of my
personal patterns collected from sixth grade on and all mother’s patterns
collected over a 50 year history. There were boxes upon boxes upon boxes. I quit
counting after more than eight stacks of 100. I knew I had to give them away.
The women’s shelter has a resale shop. It serves two purposes. The women have first pick of items they need to start over, find jobs and anything that can help them better themselves - all free to them. Actual sales to the public also supports them with housing expenses.
I started sorting. I held in my hands the patterns of years Easter
dresses and remembered exactly what they looked like. I flashed back to my own
wedding in 1974 when I held the pattern for the bridesmaid’s gowns. I made all
the dresses for my attendants and the dress for my mother in law and my little sister in law. I traveled
from the sixties to the seventies to the eighties with the big hair and
shoulder pads. I hit a group I had started collecting years ago and realized I
could not let them go. They were too classic and timeless. I set aside a pile of
patterns from the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s. There were several that were the
classic Jackie-O cuts of the sixties. The cut and fit of some of the vintage
garments will never go out of style. Someday, maybe, I will do something with
them. But for this moment in time, I was simply admiring their beauty.
Baby clothes and children’s clothes rarely change. Fabric
designs and trims change, but the shapes practically don’t. Those patterns would certainly
sell well in the resale shop. Some men’s shirts and vests also don’t change. There were stacks of
costumes for Halloween and other holidays and parties my mother made for me and
my two siblings. It was a whirlwind of memories. I stumbled on a group of
packages in mother’s collection I wasn’t aware of – my grandmother Earles’
embroidery stencils. I had never seen her embroider, but there were patterns
and stencils she had ordered from the Sears & Roebuck catalog, many were in their original
shipping envelopes. It was
fascinating to learn something about Grandma Earles that I never knew. I knew my grandmother Snapp sewed, but I am sure my mother was a better
seamstress than her own mother. My mother’s tailoring was well known. She even made
hats and collars and cuffs to change the look of her outfits. If you haven’t looked
further down the blog to find the picture of my mom in a black bathing suit,
you will catch on why there were so many of the sleek Jackie-O sheath dress
patterns from the early sixties. She had stunning legs and a knock-out shape.
Note that I did NOT get those genes. Drat that.
I packed boxes of patterns to give away. Things that were in
too bad a shape, or were just pieces of mismatched patterns, had to be tossed. I
kept the vintage designs that will remain ageless. There were three huge boxes
to take to the resale shop. It pained my heart to let them go, but I did keep
about 25 with thoughts of future sewing projects.
Back in the eighties I had my own shop in Beaumont , Texas Calder Street . I
netted several customers, one of whom became a regular. She was a local
doctor’s wife who discovered me when she came by the shop to look for jewelry.
She hired me to do several distinctive projects. One involved making her an
Easter dress out of pongee silk. The silk had actually been curtains she had
purchased at the sale of the contents of a French convent in Louisiana prior to its demolition. She had
all sorts of unusual fabric that I reinvented. I used several of my vintage
patterns to create looks that would be unique to her. When I had to leave the
shop for financial reasons, I ended up sewing in her laundry room. There were
several nights when I sat with her at her kitchen table showing her how to
repair a snagged sweater with a crochet hook, how to completely hide a hem
stitch made with knots that would never come undone and other projects. She made the remark that
she loved the fact that the tables were turned and she was reliving a fond
memory of watching her grandmother as she sewed and mended clothing. Here she sat with a younger woman
doing exactly the same thing. She said she found it comforting.
Well, I finished the pattern project and was ready to make
the reluctant trip to the resale shop. This was just one more thing in my life
I was streamlining. I did bridal and portrait photography for almost 30 years.
I just gave my daughter $3,000 worth of the latest, state of the art camera
equipment. My eye sight has called it time to set that aside. I had packed my professional cake decorating pans, complete with the plates and towers for
huge wedding cakes in preparation to give them to a budding baker. Books are another possession of which I have too many but just can’t let go of, yet.
I will need to put the dogs in the car for a drive around town and burn the
house down someday. I may not cry about the loss of this house, but the books
will be greatly mourned.
And, like I said, I did keep some of the fashion patterns. Alas, this transpired on Sunday, so I'd better be honest. The Lord had already punished me for
working on Sunday when I should have been in church. I scrubbed both bathrooms
with a top to bottom cleaning. While I was cleaning the shower and tub of the
hall bath, I heard the shower caddy slide on the shower neck, which has happened a lot. I usually just shoved it back in place, but I was bent
over scrubbing when it slipped and didn't see what was coming next. Much to my chagrin, two huge bottles of shampoo
clubbed me on the skull. Yes, I paid for not resting on the Sabbath.
So, I kept more than 25 of the patterns, maybe 50.
Okay, alright, it was more, way more.
If you hear thunder and see a flash of lightning, get out of the way. I’m going
to be smoking.
I think the figure might be closer to 100.
