numb3r_5ev3n (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
numb3r_5ev3n) wrote2024-10-13 09:33 am
numb3r_5ev3n) wrote2024-10-13 09:33 am
Entry tags:
On Sewing.
When I got started sewing, other than repairing toys and sewing buttons back on (something I learned to do fairly early) it was to make costumes.
My first attempts were rather crude, like using a blanket stitch (the second stitch I ever learned after a running stitch) to sew a hemline. We did not have a sewing machine. My grandparents had a Singer model from the 1920s that I was allowed to use only once, to make the dress for the doll that I made for my baby cousin.
I still made attempts. After seeing Sarah's dress from the ballgown scene in Labyrinth, I stared at the prom gown patterns at the local craft store, and imagined being able to make something like it.
I attempted Real Sewing in Home Economics class when I was 13. It was a boardshorts pattern. The pattern was too complicated for a bunch of 7th graders (one student infamously somehow "accidentally" made his into "Hammer pants" by accident, and wore them.) It was exactly the wrong kind of pattern to get a bunch of tweens interested in sewing. And I bought exactly the wrong type of fabric (gauzy shirt-weight in a Hawaiian print.) It ended up not being finished.
Then, when I was 15, I went to my first Renaissance Festival: Scarborough Faire. I was agog and rather envious at all of the costumes I saw. I immediately went home, acquired the worst black acetate fabric I could find (we had it on hand for another project for Theatre Camp that it never got used for) and made a tabard with a rampant deer on it in blue knit fabric (using fusible interfacing) and hood and mantle of the same blue knit fabric. I hand stitched all of it, and not very well. I was too impatient (ADHD) at that time to be very good at hand sewing. But I wore it the next time we went to Scarborough.
Then, when I was 16, I ended up in the Teen Otherkin Coven I've written about in other posts as a Junior in High School, and (soon to be ex) Best Friend's mom had a table sewing machine. And it was off to the races.
We spent weekends hammering out our variations on the so-called "SCA Special." And we wore our finished products to school on Fridays. Picture two 16-year old gothlings passing each other in the hallway at your typical high school, all decked out in their renfaire best, bellowing "JOHN SMALLBERRIES!" like it was a password, because we were in the habit of leaving The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai: Across The Eighth Dimension on as background noise while we worked.
I finally pulled my attempted boardshorts back out and finished them. But they were still the wrong fabric, and it pilled up immediately in the crotch the moment I tried to wear them. But then I used the the pattern to make a pair out of chambray, that I wore for years.
I got a job at the craft store, which I promptly lost because I was an untreated ADHD nitwit who couldn't stay on task. After a year of making a lot of my own clothes, I kind of lost interest as my mental health spiralled. The hobby became something I would take back out every so often as my mental health improved, or I would get flashes of inspiration or the sudden realization of how to fix a project that had stalled. I got really good at reverse-engineering things I saw in films (like Anakin's outfit in Revenge Of The Sith.)
Fast forward to last year. A lot of my garb, like the gray cloak I made when I was 16, ended up in a storage unit that eventually flooded. I'm slowly replacing it, bit by bit. I want to start making some more regular daywear as well. It's just an expensive hobby to get into the way things are now.
EDIT: But there was a point to this when I originally posted it, and the ADHD happened and I forgot. And it was this: When I dived into sewing as a hobby for real when I was 16, it was when I had weekly access to a really awesome machine. And working on a recent project caused me to realize that this, more than anything, probably encouraged me to dive in and just see what I could make. It didn't have a lot of the problems that cheaper machines had, and could do more functions. I didn't have the worry that I would develop later, that something might go south while I was working on a project and it would be botched or ruined.
I've used a series of machines over the years, each with their own issues. And one thing I've realized is: the boomer-aged people I knew in the 80s had the cash to drop on really good machines. and that can make a big difference. But more than anything, I need to get over my trepidation and just dive back in.
My first attempts were rather crude, like using a blanket stitch (the second stitch I ever learned after a running stitch) to sew a hemline. We did not have a sewing machine. My grandparents had a Singer model from the 1920s that I was allowed to use only once, to make the dress for the doll that I made for my baby cousin.
I still made attempts. After seeing Sarah's dress from the ballgown scene in Labyrinth, I stared at the prom gown patterns at the local craft store, and imagined being able to make something like it.
I attempted Real Sewing in Home Economics class when I was 13. It was a boardshorts pattern. The pattern was too complicated for a bunch of 7th graders (one student infamously somehow "accidentally" made his into "Hammer pants" by accident, and wore them.) It was exactly the wrong kind of pattern to get a bunch of tweens interested in sewing. And I bought exactly the wrong type of fabric (gauzy shirt-weight in a Hawaiian print.) It ended up not being finished.
Then, when I was 15, I went to my first Renaissance Festival: Scarborough Faire. I was agog and rather envious at all of the costumes I saw. I immediately went home, acquired the worst black acetate fabric I could find (we had it on hand for another project for Theatre Camp that it never got used for) and made a tabard with a rampant deer on it in blue knit fabric (using fusible interfacing) and hood and mantle of the same blue knit fabric. I hand stitched all of it, and not very well. I was too impatient (ADHD) at that time to be very good at hand sewing. But I wore it the next time we went to Scarborough.
Then, when I was 16, I ended up in the Teen Otherkin Coven I've written about in other posts as a Junior in High School, and (soon to be ex) Best Friend's mom had a table sewing machine. And it was off to the races.
We spent weekends hammering out our variations on the so-called "SCA Special." And we wore our finished products to school on Fridays. Picture two 16-year old gothlings passing each other in the hallway at your typical high school, all decked out in their renfaire best, bellowing "JOHN SMALLBERRIES!" like it was a password, because we were in the habit of leaving The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai: Across The Eighth Dimension on as background noise while we worked.
I finally pulled my attempted boardshorts back out and finished them. But they were still the wrong fabric, and it pilled up immediately in the crotch the moment I tried to wear them. But then I used the the pattern to make a pair out of chambray, that I wore for years.
I got a job at the craft store, which I promptly lost because I was an untreated ADHD nitwit who couldn't stay on task. After a year of making a lot of my own clothes, I kind of lost interest as my mental health spiralled. The hobby became something I would take back out every so often as my mental health improved, or I would get flashes of inspiration or the sudden realization of how to fix a project that had stalled. I got really good at reverse-engineering things I saw in films (like Anakin's outfit in Revenge Of The Sith.)
Fast forward to last year. A lot of my garb, like the gray cloak I made when I was 16, ended up in a storage unit that eventually flooded. I'm slowly replacing it, bit by bit. I want to start making some more regular daywear as well. It's just an expensive hobby to get into the way things are now.
EDIT: But there was a point to this when I originally posted it, and the ADHD happened and I forgot. And it was this: When I dived into sewing as a hobby for real when I was 16, it was when I had weekly access to a really awesome machine. And working on a recent project caused me to realize that this, more than anything, probably encouraged me to dive in and just see what I could make. It didn't have a lot of the problems that cheaper machines had, and could do more functions. I didn't have the worry that I would develop later, that something might go south while I was working on a project and it would be botched or ruined.
I've used a series of machines over the years, each with their own issues. And one thing I've realized is: the boomer-aged people I knew in the 80s had the cash to drop on really good machines. and that can make a big difference. But more than anything, I need to get over my trepidation and just dive back in.