Sunday 10 March 2024

Memories (or lack of)

This coming week's seminar on my course is titled "Fashioning Memories", and we each need to bring in an object which evokes a personal memory. Initially I had intended to bring in the oldest item of 'acquired new' clothing in my wardrobe; a top which I made in the 1980s. But unfortunately, and unusually for me, I realised that I don't have a single firm memory attached to either making or wearing it!

Batwing sleeves a go-go!

The pattern dates from 1982, the year I went to university. I made view 1, in a checked cotton. It was sewn on a machine, so isn't one of the garments I sewed by hand during term time. However the raw edges, now firmly matted by years of washing, suggest that it wasn't sewn at home on my mum's Husqvarna Viking either, as I would have zig-zagged the edges. In my second year at university we got a (second hand) sewing machine at my hall of residence, as quite a few of the girls sewed, and the slightly iffy quality of the stitches makes me suspect that this top was sewn on that.

Not the most perfect stitch tension

The biggest mystery however is how both the top and the pattern survived my various clearouts over the 40ish years since I made it. Many items with far greater sentimental attachments have been culled in that time, so why not this? I have no idea.

Until I realised the fundamental flaw in my plan, I had intended to wear the top to the seminar, so made a simple skirt to go with it. It's just two panels of plain dark blue cotton, with a zip on one side and a pocket on the other, pleated onto a waistband. Worn here with the top, and a belt and earrings also from the 1980s, it makes for a real blast from the past.

Time travel

To be honest it's fairly unflattering (I couldn't bring myself to photograph it full length), and I doubt if it will ever be worn outside the house, but it's comfortable and practical and made the year's first inroad into the stash.

It's a start

I do have something to talk about in the seminar and it is, of course, home sewing related, but that's another story.

No comments:

Post a Comment