By the pricking of our thumbs and by all the pins and little bits of thread on the carpet you can tell that Anna and I are involved in another dressmaking session.
Young teen-aged daughters shoot up like rhubarb. Their fashion requirements seem to change every few hours and what seem to me like almost new skirts/jeans/dresses are suddenly:
‘Ugh, Mummy, not that old thing! It’s practically falling to pieces. I’d look stupid in it and anyway it doesn’t even fit me any more!’ My own wardrobe, too, contains a selection which has become a bit old hat. And old coat. And old dress.
It is time to plan a mother-and-daughter day in town with Anna. Together we head for the pattern department at Dickins & Jones where, all around us, other mums are muttering to their daughters:
‘No, not that one, dear. The collar looks tricky. And just look at all those seams!’
While Anna flicks through the pattern books’ young trendy sections I am drinking in a Jean Muir original. (I am more than willing to drink in any Jean Muir original.) But would all those tiny, soft, romantic folds prove to be too much of a challenge? And is the style perhaps a fraction too young and romantic for me?
‘This one would suit you,’ says Anna firmly, pointing to something plain and sensible. Ah well, wasn’t it the last Begum Aga Khan who said: ‘Don’t wear what appeals to you. Wear what suits you’?
We turn our attention to Anna’s pattern choice, then on to fabrics, matching zips and other relevant haberdashery. We gasp at the current price of sewing thread; then it’s home to tea, the pinning, cutting and then the waiting sewing machine.
Treadling away, my thoughts roam over past dressmaking experiences …
I first started dressmaking in my early teens out of desperation, really, because nothing in the shops seemed to fit me. (At this stage in my development, I readily concede it wasn’t really the shops’ fault.)
Prior to that, my only sewing experience had been at school. And you know how it is at school … The casement gardening apron with the sweaty whip-and-run seams. The whole summer term spent transferring our vital statistics to graph paper. The anything-but-vital flannelette knickers cut from the strange resultant pattern.
I suspect that it takes many of us a long, long time after schooldays to get really keen about any more needlework. However, due to my shape, I treadled on until the day came when I could actually go out of doors in things I’d made myself without causing a certain amount of undue merriment. As I grew more confident I went around saying that, with patience and practice, anybody could learn to do their own dressmaking – and save pounds on clothing bills.
But, alas, I have since come to realize that some poor souls need more patience and practice than others. For everyone whose bust darts end up on her bust there must be at least three or four juggling about with two left fronts and a collar which doesn’t quite meet in the middle. I’m particularly reminded of a bewildered neighbour who staggered over in a pair of pyjama trousers measuring roughly four feet from waist to crotch and with legs inexplicably less than twelve inches long.
‘There’s something wrong here, isn’t there?’ she said, doubtfully, gazing down at her strangely hobbled lower half. ‘I can’t seem to stride in them.’
From this experience alone I learned that there really are people who’d be better off sticking to Marks & Spencer.
And even for those with some know-how, it’s all too easy to grow overconfident and end up with one odd, shiny skirt panel because the nap is running the wrong way. Or with curved sleeves which go in like a dream but which seem, when all the easing and machining is over, to be unaccountably facing backwards.
One-way prints can be a challenge, too. At this very moment I am discovering that Anna’s new dress material not only has big, definite, flower bunches which look odd upside-down, but that if I’m not very careful she’s going to end up with one half of her bust heavily floral and the other half plain.
‘Could you come and try this on, Anna?’ I call, adjusting a gather here and clipping a seam there.
‘Hm, yes,’ she says. ‘But I’m not too sure about these sleeves. And couldn’t the neckline be a bit lower?’
‘Well, I’ll see what I can do,’ I sigh, reaching for scissors and pincushion. What a good thing, I am thinking, that I have, over the years, learned (and earned) a dressmaking wrinkle or two. But I know better than to grow overconfident. I have only to think back to that purple-tweed incident to be reminded that we can all make some costly mistakes …
It was a super, flecked tweed brought back personally from Donegal. I would tackle my first piece of tailoring, I decided, and make myself a coat. ‘If a job’s worth doing …’ I muttered and went out and bought expensive buttons, pure silk lining and a smart leather belt.
If it killed me, I thought, I would do this job really well. No short cuts. If the pattern said baste I would baste. If it said bring notches together I would bring notches together. If it said ease stitch upper curve between small o’s using long stitches, disregarding interfacing and keeping seam allowances, then that is what I would do. Even if it said: ‘Place small oo’s at underarm seam and back lap at end of extension on cuff keeping front lap free and adjusting gathers: baste,’ then, by golly, I’d have a crack at it!
And it worked. On its padded hanger the finished coat looked like something out of Vogue. There was just one problem though. It looked ghastly on me.