"The day of the home dressmaker seems to have gone in most places. This is a pity for the town dressmaker was a grand institution. When ours came, it was a gala day. The sound of the sewing machine humming all day and the laughter from the sewing room as Mama and Alma chattered away was a pleasant thing. The smell of chicken simmering on the gas range was fine, and I was usually in a dither over whether my dark-blue corduroy trimmed with fur would get done for the Saturday night football dance.
Alma never used a pattern. She would riffle the pages of a fashion book and say I think I'll make the neck like this - and the skirt like this - and how about raglan sleeves?
Then her long slim shining scissors went snip, snip - and the material divided like the Red Sea when the Israelites crossed."
- Gladys Taber, Stillmeadow Daybook
That is a very heartwarming scene Gladys describes <3 Who wouldn't love to have dressmaker to come and help!
ReplyDeleteI never realized that was thing they used to do! And I started to think I should just make a sewing day for myself, and make also a fun day somehow - but there is too much to do on my days off that I feel responsible about. The balance, always the balance!
DeleteMy grandmother (Mum's mother) could make clothes like that. She never used a pattern for sewing or knitting. When she left school at the age of 14 in 1916 she went to work in the fur trade in London. She was such a good needlewoman she was asked to do all the specialist sewing work and decorative sewing and because she was so pretty she also modelled the fur coats for their clients.
ReplyDeleteI'm not like her; I have to use a pattern for everything!
I think they had the talent (or training) back then for that; my Auntie Adeline (my father's sister) said her mother could also look at an image of clothing in a magazine or whatever and just cut the fabric! But your grandmother sounds like she was quite young when she learned that, AND a model, too!
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