Unfinished Object

Sewing and I don’t go as far back as you might imagine, perhaps only seven or eight years. I can remember being fascinated with my grandmother’s sewing machine and her bin of scraps and an old sewing basket I wish I still had. I used the scraps to make things for my Barbies. In my mind’s eye they were grand ball gowns in reality…skid-row Barbie would be more honest. I also recall her trying to teach me to thread the confounded thing and run a straight seam and that I had exactly zero patience for the whole production. This may well have been my first utterance of foul language but assuredly not my last.

My next foray into sewing was a forced stint in Home Economics. I wanted to be in Shop class, but no, that was still the age of boys equal Shop and girls equal Home Ec except for one all too brief week when we swapped. The assignment was to make an animal pillow and the kit I chose was a black and white felt dog. Everything was already cut out and the pillow was more round that dog shaped. All that was required was to attach the face, ears and spot by hand with a blanket stitch, sew the edges, stuff, close the edges and border the whole thing with blanket stitch. If poor ‘Spotty’ had been picked up by the dog catcher they’d have sent him straight to the gas chamber. That thing looked as much like a dog (or a pillow for that matter) as the Eiffel tower looks like a hot fudge sundae. I hated sewing and when the class moved on to baking cookies I was ecstatic.

I took a silk screening class in college and fell in love with fabric, but sewing still eluded me and I paid a woman to hem my final projects so they met the requirements for submission. Fast forward twenty plus years; my grandmother lost an arm to cancer and in what was most likely a mix of frustration and realism she gave me her sewing machine. Figuring it had been years since the machine was last serviced I took it to a little old man so wrinkled and stooped he probably invented the first one and $70 later he pronounced it cured. For an additional $25 he sold me an attachment that allowed my basic, straight forward, prehistoric Kenmore to make button holes. I blundered into my first fabric store and purchased a modest amount of patterned and solid yellow cotton and set out to make myself a quilt. I believe I finished one square and I know it took me literally hours to do so. I hadn’t thought to ask the wizened old man how to thread the machine or the bobbin. I didn’t understand tension or needle size and disgusted I threw the puckered mess into a box… the humble beginnings of my stash. I believe it is still there buried under years of accumulation.

A few more years went by and the Kenmore was just something I dusted from time to time. I met D and he introduced me to the Fencing Club. Fencing and I didn’t get along as I couldn’t get beyond feeling like a hippo in a tutu when I was thrashing about with my foil but I excelled in painting and fixing things for them (and watching D of course) so I stuck around and they made me an honorary member. The club’s main source of revenue was running ten or twelve games at the annual Medieval Faire. Ring toss, fencing lessons, archery, sword-bob to name a few and I jumped on the band wagon to mind games and take tickets but there was a catch, working the faire required a costume. D, being an old hand at it owned several but I’d never stepped foot into a Ren-Faire. Luckily there was a long time before the Faire, months in fact, and with Halloween just around the corner costume patterns were easy to find. So I made my second venture to the fabric store selected a pattern based solely looks and not experience level, purchased fabric and nearly passed out at the register. The amount of fabric in a full skirt is not for the faint of heart. I settled myself in my craft room, then still a guest room, and worked through the pattern one agonizing step at a time. It called for zippers, boning, casings, elastic, gathers, and eases but sheer determination won out and I produced a passable skirt, shirt, and bodice and could not have been prouder of myself. I found making ren-costumes rather like drawing dragons…having never seen one folks couldn’t tell me that I’d done it wrong. Sewing bloomed. I replaced the Kenmore with a Husqvarna and my stash began to grow.

D’s affection for the fencing club and faires was waning just as mine waxed but there was still time to make a few corsets, underpinnings and gowns. Most notably Simplicity’s version of a gown from the movie Shakespeare in Love – bum rolls and cartridge pleats and farthingales OH MY! I wore it to big faire in Sarasota and spent a very memorable day being approached by people wanting my photo as they thought I was one of the actors portraying nobility. I don’t think D or the couple we were with were as delighted as I was with all the attention but I had myself a fine, fine time.

There have been several costumes since – for myself, D, friends. Many were quite complicated and all just a little seat-of-the-pants. Each of these projects was large, multi-stepped or multi-pieced. I recall that there were nine yards of fabric in the S in Love skirt and that time after time I’d thought I was near the end of a seam only to find a mile of fabric still to come. Typical of me to jump in so deep and the resulting burnout was not surprising. Then I made something small. I do not recall what it was but I do remember being awestruck when I ran the first seam in under three seconds and checking the floor to make sure I hadn’t lost something.

Sewing changed, it became an almost daily hobby. I discovered totes and bags; small projects I could finish in a few hours and didn’t require every square inch of the room to lay them out for cutting. More importantly I started to toy with my own patterns and ideas where once I would have never deviated from the written instructions. There were failures, there still are. But with each project I learned something and I became more comfortable with the whole process. I still encounter things in patterns I don’t understand, or have ideas that require puzzle solving skills to make them work but I think that’s why I love sewing. Its very vastness makes it indomitable. That I can never reach ‘ok, done that, moving on’ keeps me coming back. I might master one technique or style but the slightest movement in any direction reveals a plethora of new ways to do things, new items to make and new ideas to explore. They say sewing like knitting is coming back into fashion…for me I hope it never goes out.

Posted by Shan on 05/14 at 09:58 AM
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Unfinished Object

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