Learning to Sew

I've been sewing more often in the last year and I think I'm finally starting to "get it," to understand the big picture. I learned to sew initially nine years ago when I took a class in which we all sewed a pattern together (a pair of slacks). A humorous note is that I gained weight over the course of the couple of months I was taking the class, such that I couldn't fit into the slacks I finished sewing, nor have I ever been that thin again!

That was my only professional sewing class. Then five years ago, my friend Sarah had me over for a few sewing lessons. I pick her brain often, as well as that of one of my aunts who is an extremely experienced seamstress. Then a few months ago, the mother of a friend gave me a sewing lesson on collars, puffy sleeves, and gathering. Lastly, I look up technique instructions online: YouTube is helpful!

I find that reading a pattern and envisioning how these pieces of fabric will fit together is like oragami (for someone who has never been taught to do oragami). I start a sewing project and can't envision how on earth the fabric will create a dress, so I plod ahead with blind faith, step by step. I don't "see" the garment until the very end when it is coming together.

But I think I'm starting to get a sense for it now. I'm finding that I'll see an item of clothing and "see" how it was constructed. Sometimes I think, 'Oh, I could make that. I see how these parts were done, the technique used here and there.' Just on Sunday morning, I dressed Mary for Mass in an expensive designer dress (although, of course, I only buy such things on rock bottom clearance, or even at a consignment store!) and I realized that I could have made that dress and it wouldn't even have been too hard.

Then during Mass I was wrangling the children and suddenly I had an epiphany. Truly out of the blue, I flashed to that sewing lesson with my friend's mother, when she talked to me about sleeves, and I realized that I had made an error on Margaret's Easter dress that I'm currently sewing. It's okay, in that I can fudge it because this is a baby's dress, but I couldn't fudge such an error on a bigger person's sleeves!

I wonder if my seamstress friends can spot the error with the unfinished dress laid out.

Today I sewed Mary a summer nightgown out of an old tee-shirt of mine I'd thrown into the donation pile because the scoop collar had become too stretched out. I had been asking a friend where she buys pajamas for her children, as she and I both buy pajamas only in 100% cotton (no flame retardent chemicals) and without television cartoon characters: a tall order, let me tell you! My friend told me that she sews all her daughter's nightgowns herself out of old tee-shirts, so I took a try at it!

I laid out one of Mary's nightgowns for sizing, then began cutting and piecing together. I made some errors along the way, but nothing that matters much for a two-year-old. (I did this project while wearing Margaret in my Moby Wrap and while involving the bigger kids in "helping"--although twice Mary snuck away and got into mischief.)

Here is the final product! Mary's nightgown reminds me of the dresses worn by some of the female Greecian characters on an episode of the Original Star Trek.