Dresses

Back in the day when I was firmly attached to a belief that I would not, could not sew a stitch (thank-you very much traumatising textile teachers from high school!) my friend Saree was determined to convince me otherwise. She sat with me for hours, sharing her machine and a pattern and donating beautiful corduroy fabric to the cause and with her help I sewed my first ever project that was not made in a fog of humiliation and tears: a very sweet dress for my then one year old.

For the first time in my life, I created something out of fabric without being graded, or watched by the eyes of a middle-aged woman full of disdain for my very being. I was not scolded for not concentrating hard enough and talking too much. I sewed! And not just some shitty pencil case or pin cushion, a dress! A beautiful, practical, dress for the person I loved most in the world :) 

This was a huge turning point in my life. At the time I was trying to reconnect with my long-lost creative side by hand making greeting cards, something new for me. I'd never been into hand crafts. A very big reason for this was that my experiences with craft at school had been so demoralising that the lesson I'd walked away from those years with was: you can't do craft. This broke Saree's heart and she didn't let me spend another minute believing that :) After making that dress I went on to learn cross stitch, try my hand at sewing more things, and eventually I came to identify as craft-competent and now I LOVE crafting. And I also had another daughter who the special dress was passed on to :D

Here is Saree's eldest and mine in those cord dresses (photos by Saree's very talented mother, as are the 1st two images in this post):

The cord dress was sewn in March 2009. In December Saree had another dress pattern she shared with me. This time I shopped for my own fabric and once again we sat down together and worked away. The straps for this dress required bias binding, which Saree did for me, and she helped get me started on gathering the part beneath the solid sash. The end result remains one of my favourite items of clothing and has been worn (again) by both my daughters. Initially it was sewn to be our eldest's special Christmas Day dress :)

 

And here is Saree's eldest and mine in their complementing Christmas outfits, December 24th 2009:

And our little family on Christmas Day 2009 at Huz's parents' place:

That was our whole family back then! The following Christmas was my due date with #2 :)

My machine sewing hasn't really taken off (aside from the ring slings), as I've found other craft mediums I enjoy more, but I reflect on projects like these gorgeous dresses and think to myself that I really should make some more :)