Sewing Simply

     I love to sew, and while in college and my 20's and early 30's before kids I sewed all my dresses.  But while raising three kids and doing a part-time job assisting Cooking Classes and working at Chef's Catalog store I didn't sew much.  I did do a Prom dress years ago for my oldest daughter.  Quite a challenge- a medieval gown with many panels and piping and layers yards long.  I finished 15 minutes before she had to go.  She had gone to a friend's and had her make-up on and was frantically calling me every half hour.  It was a European design, Burda, and I found the instructions more than baffling from my customary McCalls or Simplicity.  The other week at graduation I caught her taking credit for it in something she had written about her sewing exploits.  I told her I seemed (ha, ha opposed to seam) to remember her doing only one sleeve!  She is now quite an accomplished seamstress and works on restoring antique cloths.  In a few weeks she starts an internship at Plimoth Rock working on Colonial reproductions for the summer and in her spare time she makes couch covers for extra cash.  She just started also a job working in a Colonial museum yesterday for a few days and that resumes in the Fall (thankfully a position she volunteered for last year and now they hired her!).  An unusual route sewing took my daughter. I had wanted to do costumes when I was in school and worked at the Costume Institute for a summer at the MET in NY, so she has continued where I dreamed, doing a costume minor at college.

     Last week I went looking at a favorite second-hand shop for a dress, they were cleared out (usually I can find lots of beautiful dresses, but they had re-arranged the shop and put the dresses at the front and it was no longer my treasured find in the back).  So I thought about checking out the patterns in a box in the back and found this one for $1.99!  When I got home I checked the large main pattern pieces up against fabric I had years ago ripped into squares for a simple dress I used to make and they seem to fit, if I put it sideways.  I loose a bit of give, but I'm adding a bit in the back seam for a looser fit.  Also I'm contemplating adding frogs for clasps up on the top seam or somehow making it a little less cleavage-wise, but I'm still thinking on that.  Hopefully tomorrow I'll get going on that.

     When I start sewing I actually will be using a new machine that I bought on sale, with an employee discount last winter while I worked seasonally at Joann's at the cutting table.  My previous machine was bought for the prom dress and my daughter absconded with it for college with the argument that she had used it more (well, thankfully she put it to good use).  So I'll dust off the machine and give it a rip!!!! I love having something leftover as a treat from a job- especially one as hard as that.  I also have loads of fabric I scarfed up, real cheap during a grueling Black Friday Week, I earned every yard and then some!.