I starting hand sewing things when I was pretty young, pretty much taking fabric scraps from my mother's sewing room and making doll clothes, which lead to making dolls too because I didn't think I had enough. I didn't start regular sewing until I was nearly a teenager. What I remember most about the first thing I made was that I was working with left over's from one of my mom's projects, so I dodn't have quite enough to make the sleeves, unless I pieces the fabric together. My mom's comment when she saw what I'd done was "Good work" She had been taught to sew as a child from an aunt and had been sewing for all eight of her kids. She'd also spent a year or so working at a fabric store and was always put out with the people that believed that if the pattern said you had to have 5/8 inch buttons, you couldn't use 1/2 inch buttons instead. So my first solo project pleased her in that I didn't worry too much about what the pattern said, if I got a function top out of the process.
I had gone on to sew mundane clothing through high school, did some sewing for my children when they were young. for a year or two I had taken up hand quilting, when I lived in Germany and didn't have a sewing machine available. Over the years I've sewed less and less mudane stuff, doing more costumes until I found the SCA, a reason to make lots and lots of costumes of different types. As I've gone on I sometimes sew for my granddaughter little dresses, more things for her to dress up in- like the baby blue satin and gold lame "elizabethan" last Christmas, when great with her roller blades... As to costume sewing I regularlly look for "garbie dolls", people who need costumes, but don't sew for whatever reason. Since they pay for the fabric, and sometimes for labor, I get to "feed" my habit without cost to myself. The last couple of years I've been researching 16th century dolls, so I have been making them and dressing them, which brings together many of the skills I've worked to delevop up to this point, since their clothing require the same forms and layers as regular people. And now I have my granddaughter for the summer, and I get to dress her for events too. She's a lot of fun in that she loves to dress up and play with dolls where her mother only did if other kids wanted to but it was never her favorite game. And I've only had cats inside with me the last five years or so, before that it was always dogs. I still have a dog, but the cats have taken over my house. I have a long hair black cat that believes silk is for her, especially the red-black shot I had draped on the sewing table, that showed her off beautifully. Then there's Quasimoto who not only lays on whatever I'm working on, he grabs at the cloth as it moves around. I swear he keeps it up, he's going to get his whiskers clipped, and it won't be intentional. As to the sewing itself, I guess I do live to sew at the machine, but after a car accident years ago I developed calcium on the spine and I can only do a couple of hours before it becomes extremely painful. So I've been doing more handsewing and embroidery in my nicy comfy lazy boy with my feet propped up. alex _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
