I have been sewing clothes for 30 years or so. My mother was not a great seamstress but she is the one who taught me to sew. I should say she is the one who sparked my interest in sewing. My interest grew in to a love, an almost obsessive love or sewing, designing clothes, fabrics and the search for something entirely new and fab.
I remember sewing with my mother; she did not complete high school so sometimes she had some difficulty in reading with comprehension. As I reflect on this she may have had this comprehension problem on purpose to help me learn to work it through.
We would take the time to read the instructions on the guide sheet and follow all the directions carefully but at some point in the construction of the garment she would suddenly not understand how the complete something. I felt good and being able to teach her something.
She had fantastic ideas about how to deal with the most complex things in life. Eventually I was completely on my own sewing my own clothing and making changes to the patterns to make the clothing uniquely mine. I use to have note books of all the drawing of designs unfortunately they were thrown away along with a large stash of comic books. My same wonderful mother had an evil streak called cleaning up. These things were stacked neatly in an Avon box. This box sat next to the head of my bed and sometime I would read the comic books before going to sleep or draw a new picture of whatever entered my head. Sometime I would draw clothing, sometimes flowers just whatever entered my head. She decided this box that was not torn or tattered in the least was cluttering up the place and needed to be thrown away.
I was mad at her for at least a month when I realized they were gone. Came home from school late because I was hanging out with my art teacher Mr. Moore, I love all the art supplies he had and I could draw whatever while he work on stuff at his desk. I came home dinner was on the table. I went upstairs to my room to put my new drawings in the box and the box was gone! The rest is a blur. The end result was I did not get to eat dinner that day and was stuck in the house for the rest of the weekend.
What was I talking about again? Yes my love for sewing. There was one point in my life when everything I wore was hand made by me for me. Then I started sewing for other people. Which is exciting and a pain, because people always wanted to change things right when the garment was complete. Or they did not listen when told not the change their weight. They would gain weight “it does not fit you don’t know what you are doing! “ They would lose weight “it’s to big didn’t you measure me right!” So after a while I decided it was not worth it. So I just sewed for family or my self.
Since most pictures and drawing were lost in a fire that happened 5 years ago. I am in the process of getting pictures of the clothing that I have created for my sisters. I am going to create a new scrapbook.
Now my niece is drawing clothing and bringing her designs to me for me to create for her to wear. She is nine years old and she is creating clothing for young adults. Of course I have to edit them to make them fit her age. But she is excited where ever she comes over for a fitting. Her sister is also interested but she copies everything her big sister does and so time will tell who get tired of this first.
I will be getting a camera so I can post the pictures of her drawings and the completed garments. I hope to encourage these little designers.
I remember sewing with my mother; she did not complete high school so sometimes she had some difficulty in reading with comprehension. As I reflect on this she may have had this comprehension problem on purpose to help me learn to work it through.
We would take the time to read the instructions on the guide sheet and follow all the directions carefully but at some point in the construction of the garment she would suddenly not understand how the complete something. I felt good and being able to teach her something.
She had fantastic ideas about how to deal with the most complex things in life. Eventually I was completely on my own sewing my own clothing and making changes to the patterns to make the clothing uniquely mine. I use to have note books of all the drawing of designs unfortunately they were thrown away along with a large stash of comic books. My same wonderful mother had an evil streak called cleaning up. These things were stacked neatly in an Avon box. This box sat next to the head of my bed and sometime I would read the comic books before going to sleep or draw a new picture of whatever entered my head. Sometime I would draw clothing, sometimes flowers just whatever entered my head. She decided this box that was not torn or tattered in the least was cluttering up the place and needed to be thrown away.
I was mad at her for at least a month when I realized they were gone. Came home from school late because I was hanging out with my art teacher Mr. Moore, I love all the art supplies he had and I could draw whatever while he work on stuff at his desk. I came home dinner was on the table. I went upstairs to my room to put my new drawings in the box and the box was gone! The rest is a blur. The end result was I did not get to eat dinner that day and was stuck in the house for the rest of the weekend.
What was I talking about again? Yes my love for sewing. There was one point in my life when everything I wore was hand made by me for me. Then I started sewing for other people. Which is exciting and a pain, because people always wanted to change things right when the garment was complete. Or they did not listen when told not the change their weight. They would gain weight “it does not fit you don’t know what you are doing! “ They would lose weight “it’s to big didn’t you measure me right!” So after a while I decided it was not worth it. So I just sewed for family or my self.
Since most pictures and drawing were lost in a fire that happened 5 years ago. I am in the process of getting pictures of the clothing that I have created for my sisters. I am going to create a new scrapbook.
Now my niece is drawing clothing and bringing her designs to me for me to create for her to wear. She is nine years old and she is creating clothing for young adults. Of course I have to edit them to make them fit her age. But she is excited where ever she comes over for a fitting. Her sister is also interested but she copies everything her big sister does and so time will tell who get tired of this first.
I will be getting a camera so I can post the pictures of her drawings and the completed garments. I hope to encourage these little designers.
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