Wow-- someone else had a Babette doll. Cool. I started sewing when I inherited my great aunt's sewing machine. No one else wanted it, but I sure did! I started making clothes for my Babette doll by hand, and "graduated" when I got the machine to using the sewing machine. I found a length of cloth in the seat of the bench and decided to make a dress of "an old fashioned girl"-- a bustle style dress. It was a disaster, but I kept going, undiscouraged by the failure.
I made dresses for my mom and myself. I still get teased about using ric-rack as trim down the length of a sleeve. (I cut the sleeve wrong and needed to cover it up.) Then I decided to give a Halloween party and decided to do as Scarlett O'Hara, because the movie had been re-released and it had impressed me a lot. The costume was pretty elaborate and was the duplicate of the sketch in the pattern envelope. I think I was 16 at the time. I continued to make costumes and clothes through high school and became a Theatre major. Ended up loving the Technical stuff because I HATED learning lines. In Grad school I also majored in Theatre/ Costume. I did theatre costumes for 6 years, moved to Long Island and needed a "real" job, so I got hired to design swimwear. Twenty four years later, my design job went off shore and I got a job teaching fashion in a college where I teach sewing, among other things. Belonging to the SCA fills my costuming "need" -- Elizabethan and Florentine clothing of the 16th C. are my specialties. My husband and I have dogs (Westies) at our house, who like to "butt test" the fabric when it gets laid on the floor. Regards to all- Monica Spence _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
