I come from a family of sewers. My paternal great-grandmother was a
dressmaker. She literally could copy anything she saw, including most types
of lace. I inherited many of her tools and a ton of handmade lace and lace
samples, which I used on my own wedding dress, and my niece's christening
dress. My maternal great-grandmother was the one who first taught me to
sew, when I was 4. I learned to machine sew by sitting on her lap while she
ran the pedal of the treadle sewing machine and helped me learn to
manipulate the fabric. I made doll clothes all through my childhood,
preferring to dress the dolls rather than actually playing with them. My
mother made all my school clothes until I was about 12 or so, and I helped
her with many of them, which is probably why to this day I hate stroking
gathers.
When I was 13 I was signed out of the manditory sewing class because my
mother refused to have me make the required projects (a gathered half-apron
and a tote bag) since they had to be done at the pace of the rest of the
class, and she considered that a waste of my time. The summer I was 14 I
had my first real paying job sewing costumes for a summer stock production
of Pirates of Penzance. I worked for that theater company for the next 7
summers, and also did high school drama productions. I worked just about
every tech job there was, and acted a bit, usually as a singer/dancer, but I
always worked on the costumes. I started historical reenactment when I was
17, and of course costuming was a big draw.
As an adult, I've worked as an alterations seamstress (yuk!), had my own
business producing accessories and children's clothes, line production
sewing for a ski clothing manufacturer, sewing instructor, patternmaking and
production sewing for an airplane manufacturer, and currently I'm making
costumes, mostly reenactment costumes, free-lance. I do costumes for a
community theater group when they have a period piece and can afford me, but
I'm mostly working for 2 private clients with seemingly inexhaustable
costuming needs.
I'm entirely self-taught, with my grandmothers and my first theater director
being my greatest mentors. I would like to take a few classes, fashion
drawing and some advanced patternmaking would be good, but I can't find any
locally that won't require me to take an entire course, which I can't afford
and don't have time for.
Oh, and I do have a cat, but I haven't always, and have had dogs in the
past, and will again when we find the right puppy. My current cat has a
silk fetish, and so is banished from the sewing room, since he insists on
dragging any silk fabric around the house with his teeth.
Melusine
_______________________________________________
h-costume mailing list
h-costume@mail.indra.com
http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
