From the Department of I-wish-I'd-thought-of-that

I've long enjoyed this site, and it's time I brought it to your attention. The blogger sews, but also delights in bringing us old sewing patterns and either attaching little stories to them or attributing dialogue to their often weirdly posed models. This one goes: 

Alison: Okay girls, everyone straight on the mission? Find your target,      then catch, clamp, drag. Celia, you’re without a bridesmaid today, you gonna be good on your own?
Celia: No worries, Sarge, I got this. I’ll bring back a good one.
Alison: Bridesmaids, don’t be hasty. Select those targets with care. Catch and release was last week, this is live fire exercise. Repeat, this is a live fire exercise. I’ll see everyone back at Pastor Rivendale’s at 3 pm sharp, or the ice cream cake is gonna be soggy by the time we’re through with the ceremonies. Now — are we ready?
All: Hoo-AH!

Here are a couple more:



While Dulcie went on and on about how handsome, clever, and innocent her new prison pen pal was, Laura watched her rib cage carefully. Could Dulcie beat her all-time record of 41 words per breath?




Floral: Look. Look into my midriff mandala. Lose your "self" and become one with creation.
Yellow: I represent the Sun, and thus life itself.
Green: I represent all other living things, given life by the Sun. Or, possibly, avocados. It's hard to tell. I mean, my midriff triangle could represent the avocado seed, right?

Daft but fun, don't you think. And since I own a whopping carton of dress patterns going back to the early 60s, I really do wish I'd thought of this myself.

The joy of fabric

Jacque Shaw

As often happens, S and I met for coffee in the weekend then found ourselves drawn like lemmings to The Fabric Warehouse.
I did a double take when one of the young assistants walked towards us in a dress made from the same fabric as one of S's dresses. S wore it in BA, and the fabric holds happy associations for me. But even without those, this dress and its wearer - Jacque Shaw - would have given me pleasure. Let me count the ways.
1. She looked gorgeous in it, and is a lovely young woman.
2. She made it herself - it was imaginatively conceived and so nicely sewn.
3. I love people who know what they're talking about, and those who employ them - Jacque is highly knowledgable, and helpful.
Which isn't surprising, since she's in the final year of BDes (Hons) in fashion at Massey University. You can see some of her work here.
S bought beautiful silk, printed as though hand-painted in watercolours, in deliciously translucent shades of dove gray, mauve-y pink and green, along with some perfectly matched pinwhale corduroy for a jacket.
I bought a length of green boiled wool boucle, enough for a high-waisted, below-the-knee pencil skirt. Its colour is what I think of as "Esprit green".
I don't care for Esprit at all as a label (too little-girly/sporty/tatty), but a long time ago - last century, in fact - I bought an Esprit tee-shirt because it was a wonderful shade of singing green. And I've been hooked on the colour ever since.

All that remains is to sew it up. Or will I find mere possession of the fabric enough?

Last tango before Buenos Aires

And to complete this trio of images (which, whatever their intrinsic value might be, are also a substitute for "proper" written blogging due to lack of time), here's one of (ahem) me.
Posting me pictures is something I usually avoid. The exceptions so far have been either a) because I'm in fancy dress and with friends, or b) visible only from the neck down. Here's exception c) - the back view.
I always cringe when blog authors - and fashion bloggers are especially prone to this - liberally post fetching pics of themselves in outfits de jour (no, I'm not naming them, I don't want to start a war). It's so narcissistic.
But you're getting this one because it was taken by Des on Sunday then skilfully photoshopped and the caption added. Because it's tango. Because it's so untrue-to-Plain-Jane-real-life ethereal. And because, although highly unsuitable for dancing, it's the dress Suzanne made me.

So and so-ing

One weekend, with our second Buenos Aires adventure looming in October, Suzanne and I swooped on The Fabric Warehouse in Thorndon to buy silk. We bought several lengths each, and this Sunday we set out to make up one of them.

I used to be an avid sewer. Back in my teens and 20s, when there was virtually no money for clothes, I never hesitated to make them - for me, for the kids, and even, at times, for the various men in my life (yes, all right, the odd caftan - but I see the error of my ways now, honestly). A good part of the habit was the feeling of creativity and accomplishment sewing gave me at a time in my life when those pleasures were in short supply.
In the last 10 or 15 years, I've virtually given up. I found it easier to earn the money to buy the clothes I wanted than to sit shoulders hunched over a sewing machine. I still love fabric, though - love to see it and handle it, and imagine what I might make with it. Back in the day, I could turn a revere and set in a sleeve well enough to make others exclaim over my skills. So I continued to call myself a sewer.
Until I met Suzanne. Now she is a sewer. Her methods and results so completely outclass mine that I can't put myself in the same category. All I can say is that I know enough to understand just how damned good she is.
And, unlike any number of home sewers, how impeccable her taste. Coats, dresses, pants, hats, bags ... All beautifully constructed, so that to say they are indistguishable from manufactured ones is to downgrade the care, skill and vision that's gone into making them.
And her apartment is beautifully set up for sewing. Behind mirrored double doors in the sittingroom is a counter holding the Pfaff and the overlocker, a stool tucked underneath. Either side are pull-out drawers, and overhead, shelves holding dozens of labelled ziplocked bags of magical fabric, bought here, in Vietnam (she took her machine to Hanoi when she lived there) and elsewhere. Behind the door is a Suzanne-shaped tailor's dummy.

But even she balked at this silk - "It's like sewing water". It constantly slipped and fell and flowed as she worked with it.
I tried to help. And there did come a point when I was indispensible - easing the double-gathered silk to fit the fully stretched top while Suzanne pinned. This excercise was gratifyingly hard on my wrists and arms, requiring several rest breaks and allowing me to feel I was contributing. My only other initiative was to boldly take the scissors to the tank top. Most of the time, though, I hovered and dithered.
By dinner time, the seamstress was laughing wildly over how long it had taken two seemingly smart women to get this far. A mere four hours to attach side-seamed silk to a top! She decided a good night's sleep was a prequerisite for tackling the next stage. Just don't tell us how straightforward it will be!

Fancy that

When does dress become costume, and costume dress? I supect it's not always a black-and-white-distinction but a gradation. What got me thinking so was that, at M's house the other day, we explored the contents of a hamper containing nearly two decades-worth of the fancy dress outfits she had made  her children.

This one is Snow White. The gold braid on the bodice, the detachable peplum, the ribbons on the sleeve, the little cloak - all lovingly sewn into a small girl's dream. And clearly a costume. To the grown ups anyway.

But for the child wearing it? She isn't merely dressed like Snow White - she is Snow White. Just as those little girls who go to the supermarket and the cafe as fairies - complete with tiaras, wands and wings - are fairies. You can see it in their faces, the way they carry themselves.

It would never have occured to me as a child that it might be possible to leave the house in dress-ups. It certainly wouldn't have occured to my mother to allow it. My public appearances were always as her daughter. Which, from my point of view, was also a costume, albeit one I was sentenced to wear for the foreseeable future.

But back to the dress-up hamper. Inside were firemen, dinosaurs, miniature showgirls, crusaders, princesses and various creatures, all waiting to be animated by a small body and a big imagination. We also spotted a couple of church-fair bargains in the shape of Margaret Thatcher jackets (which I wish I'd never seen), and two ball gowns of M's, both made by her own mother.  

This was her first. As you can probably tell, it's a Mother's Daughter outfit. The soft white un-structured cotton screams virginal ingenue, while its young wearer pined for sophistication. 

  
That came later - in the form of this one. A far more grown-up affair, now that M was a married woman.

I loved M's hamper. I don't want to come over all maudlin, but how wonderful that she (and her mother) not only made these outfits, but that M kept them. They are a colourful, crumpled testament to love and imagination.

And the ball gown she's making K? Another costume, really (as is my tango look). One in which C will be able to conjure up a self more glamourous than her quotidian one. A gown in which to spend an evening being what she wears.