2003-04-08 - 11:08 p.m.
Just when we thought spring was here. The sky has turned grey and there is a miserable, damp wind swirling a few snowflakes around the hunched shoulders of the people scurrying by. A funny thing about spring relapses is that a lot of folks just refuse to go back into those winter coats. Refuse. Even though it is freezing outside, everyone seems to be dashing about in their shirtsleeves, looking shocked.
Well, not me. Even though the weather gods have completely insulted me with this last blast, my �at least� is that I get to wear my winter clothes a little longer. Because, you see, that is all I have at the moment. Last fall, in a sweeping purge of my closet, I threw out all of my old limp summer clothes, and just told myself I would have to deal with it when spring rolled around. And now�gulp�that time is here and I have nothing to wear. It had to happen, and it is probably just as well that I am forcing myself to buy some new stuff since I usually go into a low self-esteem holding pattern during the summer. I don�t like summer clothes and don�t look good in anything that shows much skin, because I have pale, translucent skin that blotches and freckles but never tans. I�ve never liked shoes that slap and flap and flop on your feet, (sandals). So usually I go around looking blah in the summer, in my droopy dresses or white painter�s pants and tee-shirts.
So lately I have spent a fair amount of time shopping for some new clothes on an emergency basis, generally finding that I am appalled by most of what I can afford. I am sure there are beautiful clothes out there somewhere, in the stores with snooty clerks that wouldn�t wait on me even if I was brave enough to darken their doors. But in the moderately priced stores, there is a dearth of clothes that appeal to me. There seems to be a lot of the stretchy, clingy stuff designed for teenagers (needless to say, not flattering to the middle-aged body). And then the stuff that the older set is supposed to want�. Oh, my god. Do they just think everyone over a certain age has lost all their taste along with their firm abs, and natural hair color? I don�t see myself ever walking around with loud colored pictures of cartoon animals on my chest, no matter how old I get.
So anyway, the few things I liked seemed to be some simple, soft little cotton tops with details like touches of embroidery and ties. They remind me of the way I dressed in the seventies, except then I made my own summer tops from a dollar�s worth of cheap cotton muslin or calico. And the comparable thing costs $60 in the stores today. So, I guess�.. it�s time to haul out the sewing machine.
I used to sew all the time and I�m good at it. I got through college and years of poverty by making my own clothes from almost nothing�. like buying an old skirt at a thrift store for a quarter and cutting it up to make a top, or figuring out how to copy clothes I liked by drawing patterns on newspaper. It was a challenge and it was fun. I made most of my son�s clothes until he went to school and got �brand conscious,� both of my sisters' wedding dresses and a down coat for my brother that he still has, more than twenty years later.
I grew up in a family where everyone female sewed. Both of my grandmothers were wizards with a sewing machine, and both of them as well as my mother sewed clothes for me when I was a child. And beautiful doll clothes as well, complete with tiny collars and sashes and buttons and snaps. I started learning to sew when I was six, by sewing two squares together on three sides to make bags or stuffing and sewing the fourth side to make pillows. When I was eight, I asked for and received a small hand-cranked sewing machine for Christmas, and set about making my own doll clothes. It never occurred to me not to sew because I didn�t know �how.� I just thought of different things to try and tried them (my eternal approach to life). There were many failures of course, and some hissy fits along the way, but the next day I would have another idea and I�d be cutting and stitching again.
I started making clothes for myself when I was twelve, the products of a 4-H project. And in high school, I took home economics classes where we made gingham aprons and awful jumpers. I remember the teacher told me to buy the size fourteen pattern. I didn�t think that sounded right, (I was about 5�3�, 110 pounds) but went along with it, thinking maybe there was something about this pattern sizing that I didn�t know. Of course I was drowning in this enormous jumper. It was so large, it had to be taken apart and reconstructed, and even in a smaller incarnation it still had some major darts with a life of their own.
Throughout all of this experience, I was still the impulsive and impatient girl I had always been, full of enthusiasm and always in a hurry to get done and move on to something new. As I started to make more complicated things, sewing began to get frustrating. I didn�t take the time to pin and baste and measure carefully and then when seams didn�t quite line up, I just whacked off the extra. And the heck with all that pressing; I always thought I could think of a way to do it faster. My poor misshapen garments were a tangle of threads and ravels and tucks.
But one summer day, when I was about fourteen, I was having a meltdown because I was supposed to take my pink seersucker dress to the fair and it was a mess. My mother was tired of listening to me whine about it and suggested that maybe my grandmother would help me get my project into shape. I was willing to try anything at that point, so I took my wadded up dress over to grandma�s and threw myself at her mercy. I thought maybe she would do some work on it, to tell the truth, that maybe she would do a magic snip here and stitch there and make the thing look respectable. But Grandma took one look at that dress, and said, in her gentle way, �It looks like we are going to have to start all over.�
What? Start all over? It was only my great love and respect for my grandmother that kept me from pouting�. That and the fact that I need her help very much.
She helped me rip out every seam, and iron all the pieces flat again. And then she surveyed the pattern and carefully transferred all the little markings. She pinned every seam carefully and marked exactly where my stitching would start and stop.
Oh, my god. We are never going to get done at this rate�.
She set up the ironing board and trimmed and pressed every seam as soon as it was stitched. All threads were tied off and snipped so they wouldn't tangle. Miraculously, the difficult parts started fitting together perfectly. The collar turned neatly, the zipper no longer wavered side to side. At the end of the day, we had a dress fit for the county fair.
But the reason I always remembered that day was because it was one of those early turning points in my understanding of the world. I remember so clearly the feeling of the light going on in my head as I watched my grandmother's arthritic hands work carefully with the fabric. I realized for the first time in my life that process is important, that the only way you can achieve anything is to do each small step as well as you can. I remember watching her all that day, even when she stopped sewing and fixed lunch for us. I watched her wash the dishes, carefully soaping each dish and rinsing it clean.
I never did anything the same after that. I became a good seamstress by doing things the way Grandma did them, but maybe more importantly I thought to apply those methods to other things in my life, as sort of a philosophy of right action. If you take good care in doing the small things, the big things will work themselves out.
I don't sew much anymore.... for many reasons. My time is limited. Fabrics are harder to find, and fabric and patterns are expensive now; it is easy to end up spending more on the materials than a ready-made garment would cost. There is no guarantee of success, either. Even when everything is carefully selected and constructed, sometimes a pattern runs large or small, or fabric is hard to work with and you end up, after a lot of work, with something that doesn�t fit, or you wouldn�t wear to a dog fight. There is always that risk.
But sometimes I can't resist, especially when I see all the things I can't afford but know I could make. I've been sewing this week, and I always think of my grandmother when I sew. And I think of how she made such beautiful things with only the old treadle sewing machine, and the simplest tools. She was one of the people in my life who had so much influence on me, and I don't suppose she ever realized it. She wouldn't know what to think of the life I lead, here is this city. It would probably scare her to death. But when I sew I think she would be proud.
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