Two so-so garments of matching colours merge to be a brighter whole, with silk top sliced and diced to embellish linen dress.
This Sew it Again task I’ve set myself is a labour-of-love resewing a garment a day during 2014 to demonstrate a different way of dressing and I find inspiration everywhere.
“One of the best skills a girl can learn is to sew.” As I read these words last night, my heart sang.
Social activist and blogger Mary Dickinson said this in U on Sunday’s Inside my Wardrobe column: “I have been sewing since I was 10 so now I can buy something, if necessary, that is too big and take it in or chop the sleeves off and change it. I think one of the best skills a girl can learn is to sew.”
Thank you Mary, you have affirmed my belief that home-sewing is a life-skill akin to home-cooking, and there’s good reason to revive these simple skills that once were commonplace.
In Eco chic, Matilda Lee quotes Mrs Hubert Humphrey, wife of former US vice-president, similarly: “When a woman learns to sew, she becomes more fashion-conscious than if she just goes out and buys what she wants.”
I’m interested to know how many people own a sewing machine and can use it – I’m canvassing this topic at every opportunity including at my Carindale talk next week on Sew it Again and upcycling.
Social researcher Mark McCrindle is quoted on this topic in a Sunday Mail article from January 2011: “Women of today tend to be busier, juggling more roles, and are quite prepared to compromise a bit of the homemade just to save some time … we live in a throw-away culture where, rather than repair something, we will buy a new one, even if it is just a matter of darning holes or sewing on buttons … as such, many women have lost these skills.”
But in recent years we have come to revalue home-cooking because of the nutritional, emotional and cultural pleasure it adds to the eating experience – and Danielle Crismani’s fabulous Baked Relief movement is an example of valuing these skills.
So too, I believe, we will come to recognise the value of home-sewing as a pleasurable, empowering, ecologically sustainable experience.
Today’s upcycle is a linen peasant dress I made about five years ago which needed a makeover. From my op shop stash, I found a silk top in similar colours that would never be worn again as it was and ‘harvested’ its viable components – using its hemline to trim the neck, its bodice to create a cummerbund and straps used to secure it with a bow. I made a rough slit in one side of the bodice to feed the bow through and left the zip in place – evidence of its ‘upcycled’ heritage.
