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Wednesday, June 16, 2010

MORE SEWING RULES

Mike returned last night from his Oregon geocaching tour. I think he had a good time but seemed relieved to be home. He doesn't get a lot of sympathy from me. I figure any discomfort he experienced was self-imposed.

While Mike was away, Nellie (the dog) and I stayed home. And while Mike was away, summer came and went. The high on Sunday was 89 while this afternoon we're at a chilly 54 with some light rain.

Mike plans to write several posts about his Oregon experiences, but he's not ready yet, so here's one I wrote while he was away.

It's been known from the beginning of time that you can't patch old fabric with new. Jesus used this fact as a practical illustration for spiritual application. So we all agree that for the optimum end product we should use new materials. But it has come to the point that we have to think about what we're throwing away, and we seem to be experimenting with uses for old textiles in order to keep them from the burgeoning landfill.

Re-using textiles is not a new concept. Remember our pioneering ancestors who kept anything that might be useful. Clothes, curtains, and such were made from feed sacks, and then the feed companies began to play to that, using a variety of pretty prints. Some children went to school dressed in feed sack fabrics. "And we knew who they were, too," remarked a friend who lived through that time, implying that maybe it wasn't as great then as we like to remember. Today we're looking for those prints in replication. Quilts might be made from the feed sacks or from the better pieces of old clothes. One of Grandma Ina's patchwork quilts was done in dull woolen scraps with the exception of one deep red piece of velvet. I'd love to know the story of that quilt. A child's coat might be fashioned from a man's suit or overcoat. When I worked at the local museum, one of our dear volunteers made a vest for me out of a pair of her husband's old slacks to show how it was done. For that to be successful, you have to coordinate the broadest part of the female anatomy with certain wide spots in the slacks. As interesting as this re-use project sounds, I never wore that vest.

My mother, a teen-ager in the 1920s, told me that she did not have new dresses of her own. Instead, her wardrobe consisted of the dresses she made over from her mother's cast-offs. (As an aside, my Mother's parents were conservative but not poor.) If Mother liked a particular dress, she could hardly wait until it was handed down. However, in my time, my mother was finished with the concept of re-using fabric and said as much. She saw re-use as something she had moved through – something she no longer had to do. In the '50s and '60s, my growing-up years, she loved the availability of wonderful new blends and experimental fabrics. She could measure the quality of fabric by feel as well as by sight. She rarely skimped on quality and lamented it if she did. She subscribed for swatches from several mail-order fabric clubs based in New York City ("Fabrics 'Round the World" was one) until we began to see more quality fabrics in our regional stores. So, it was an exception for Mother to re-use fabric, and if she knew what I'm doing, she would cluck her tongue and say, "Kathy, can't we just go to the store and get you some fabric?"

So what is it I'm doing? I'm making doll clothes out of worn embroidered pillowslips. I'm cutting around the thin sections as best I can in order to preserve the embroidery. Here's a photo of Shirley Ann wearing a nightgown embellished by embroidery done by my mother. The pattern for the gown was originally published in 1930 for the Patsy Ann doll. I did a lot of the work on the gown by hand.

And now I'm off to prepare the guest room. Hallie is coming tomorrow to meet with one of her accounts here in the valley. We're excited because she's going to spend the weekend with us. We'll go the farm. KW

12 comments:

  1. I LOVE it! What a great way to keep that beautiful embroidery.

    As you can imagine, we go through A LOT of fabric in our fashion classes. Last night, the final projects for the various classes were being put up in preparation for the advisory board meeting being held tonight. One of the dresses was stunning. It was a simple sundress but the fabric just called out to me. Turns out, the student had taken an old dress from the late '50s and had cut it up to make the sundress. I whimpered. I know not all clothing can be heirloom but it seemed like such a waste to use that beautiful vintage fabric on a class project.

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  2. Oh, what a sweet nightie!! Shirley Ann looks as if she's quite proud and happy with it. :-) AND it's a great way to treasure and enjoy the handwork your mom created. Well done!

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  3. Kathy, if you ever make it out to Philadelphia, we'll have to visit Fabric Row on 4th Street. Looking forward to hearing about Dad's geocaching trip. If he came home tired out, that probably means good stories.

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  4. That's a nice summertime nightgown for Shirley Ann. I think it's a very sweet way to honor Grandma's pretty needle work.

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  5. The little gown served to prove that future work with "Patsy Ann" patterns will need a little alteration for Shirley Ann. Patsy Ann probably has a composite body while the American Girl has a cloth body and is more plump, if you will. The gown is not suitable for child's play. It was inclined to tear under the right arm even as I worked with it -- which brings us right back to the reasons we don't use old fabric.

    We sewists do love to visit fabric shops, Murray. Fabric Row sounds like a big warehouse. And we do think of a trip to Philadelphia . . .

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  6. Oh Kathy, I love it!! Shirley Ann is a doll (ha!)

    I am working on making some pillowcase dresses for my daughter too (need to clear the dining room table first). In fact I was at JoAnn's today looking for some complimentary fabric. I have several hand me down pillowcases to work with - some are cross stich, and I have one my mom just made but I thought it would be more cute as a dress.

    And, I live outside Phili, so I may check out fabric row, but it does sound intimidating. I know phili is a treasure for collectors of all kinds.

    Thanks for a great post!!

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  7. Oooooh! I want to make a pillowcase dress, too, but for that I think I should use a new one. I loved the days of working off the dining room table. Unfortunately we downsized and now we need the table for meals. Definitely hampers my sewing efforts.

    It's great to know where you live. Murray has been in Phili since he went off to college.

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  8. Hi Kathy! I just HAVE to chime in...I've been following your blog (LOVE it!) ever since you got a couple of those vintage 1930s Patsy Ann Butterick patterns from my Favorite Huggable store. (Your thrifty mother would have been truly aghast at the number of old patterns I have!) Shirley Ann is so adorable, and looks mighty pleased modeling her "new" nightie. What a fabulous idea to use the time-softened fabric of a pillowcase so beautifully embroidered by your mother! I personally think your mother (but more especially HERS) would be quietly proud to see how you so lovingly have given new life to her handiwork.
    You're an inspiration, Kathy, thanks! I'm heading downstairs to my sewing room to begin making a doll for my soon-to-be-born-very-first GREAT-granddaughter. HER mother, Brit, is my very first granddaughter...Brit surprisingly requested another Alice in Wonderland doll for her first daughter, can you believe it? She loved the one I made for her cousin, Elise. I'll have to make Alice#2 a "new" nightie, using material from my own mother's stash of fabric, now at home in my own sewing room! Ah yes, the beat goes on!

    THANKS KATHY! Barbara
    P.S. As a baby, Brit's pronunciation of "Gramma" was "Mammo", so that became my personal gramma name that stuck. All 20 of my grandkids (as well their friends) call me "Mammo"...hence "mammo20".

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  9. Thanks, Barbara. Through your wonderful store I found exactly what I needed for a "retro" experience. I continue to wonder at the patterns for doll clothes and stuffed toys available in the 1930s. You have a great store. It's fun to visit there. Thanks for leaving a comment. I'm sure you are a practiced sewist and the doll you're making will be charming.

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  10. Believe it or not, all of those years I taught at Temple U in Philly and I never went to Fourth Street....

    However....JoMars is another story. It, too, is in Philly and it is a veritable hidden treasure. It's been 10 years since I've lived on that coast and I'm still digging JoMar fabric out of my stash. (Ann, if Fourth St. seems to intimidating, start with JoMar--I used to go to the "I" Street store because it was easy access to I-95 and I could stop in on my way home from work http://www.jomarstores.com/index.cfm)

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  11. Kathy,
    Just to put a righteous number of candles on Mike's next birthday cake, you can be sure that he attended elementary school with kids (at least one) that wore shirts made from feed sacks. And we thought they were pretty cool! They were new to us and we didn't have too many new things. If your parents kept the obligatory chickens and you had a relative and/or friends that bought feed in quantities for similar purposes, the only problem became finding matching prints.

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  12. Hi Richard! It's good to hear you sounding like your old cheerful self. Hope you're feeling better.

    Mike is blissfully unaware of the whole feed sack culture. I had to explain. You'll hear from him in a more private setting.

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