The school I went to in my secondary years, had a compulsory ‘Dressmaking’ class. While mildy fascinated (my mother sews), I mostly saw this class as a great opportunity to have a chat and relax in between other subjects. It seemed a bit of a laugh and impossibly easy to avoid doing any actual work. The general construction, ironing, and need to share machines with the rest of the group would have made it impossible to supervise as a teacher, and Mrs Prendergast (who as it turns out was having big problems at home herself), was not really in control.
I suppose I learnt enough to be able to get by these days, but the finer points were definately lost on me, and it’s a shame I didn’t pay attention then, because it would have helped a lot now in dealing with some of these complicated patterns I’m looking at these days for fiddly little children’s clothes. Mrs Predendergast – you get the last laugh. 😉
As long as the pattern is easy, I have no problem in altering, or adding to it. The moment there are more than the basic pieces I get all paralysed and flappy. Breath, breathe, breathe….
The ‘wardrobe project’ as I’m calling it at the moment, is going along nicely however. My daughter has 2 dresses, 3 skirts, 2 nighties, and a big knitted coat. Next I need to make her some pants, and figure out how I am going to tackle the tops. Stretchy T-shirts are just so easy and comfy, and if I find an Australian manufacturer I may just succumb and buy her those, embellishing them myself. A girl’s got to be comfortable.
The big score in the past few weeks was the discovery of Burda pattern magazines at the local library. I had no idea, until Kirsten mentioned they were available, and then bang, there they were at the library. Whoot! So I borrowed 5 mags, and now potentially have more patterns in my hands than I will ever need in the forseeable future, including lots of great shirts which will be good for me for summer. I am quite excited, and have sorted out the stash into a more manageable pile, so I can actually see what’s there. Scary but good.
I wonder if schools still offer dressmaking as part of their curriculum. It seems to me, that these days, that sort of self-sufficiency is a great thing we can do for ourselves, and it makes the world a bit more interesting too.
