"The World is too Quiet without you nearby..."
-Lemony Snicket
-E.M. Forster, Howard's End.
-T.F.Hodge (From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph.....)
Photographs 2020
Showing posts with label Sewing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sewing. Show all posts
Friday, April 3, 2020
SOLITUDE QUILT #1
-E.M. Forster, Howard's End.
-T.F.Hodge (From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph.....)
Photographs 2020
Thursday, October 3, 2019
THE BLACK TAFFETA DRESS
" My mom taught me how to sew when I was 2 or 3, so I've been sewing for as long as I can remember."
Mr. Pooh-pers helps
That Black taffeta Dress. Hand sewn with needle and thread in 1984. My mother, the seamstress,spent weeks getting it just right. Paper thin. Crushed in the hand. 35 years and counting.....
Black Taffeta circa 1984
As long as I can remember. Yes. There's been needle and thread. Now, I have a lot of fabric, beads, glitter, sari strips. I am a fabric hoarder, I freely admit it. And I love it.
My mother sewed tidy clothes, neat window treatments, sturdy cushion covers. I'm much more messy, abstract, mixing mediums of fabric, saris, beading, sheers, into quilts, bags, stockings, hundreds of metres of fabric.......
When I first wanted to sew, my mother showed me a back stitch, gave me some scraps of fabric and told me to start with Barbie clothes.I had to take off their arms and legs and heads to make anything fit. I threw away the fabric and kept the broken dolls.
my first sewed quilt 1995
She would sew late into the night. With the radio playing softly beside her machine as she worked.
2011 big quilts
It was her space and time.
I was never allowed to touch her machine. But I loved to hear it's comforting whirrrr in the wee hours . It meant she was making something wonderful.
Memory Quilt 2017
Then in 1984, there was THE gown. The black paper taffeta designed with sleeves like Princess Diana's wedding dress. For my Grad concert.
1984
2019 Underground Railroad
One year, when I was in university down in California I needed something for a quartet concert. I made a pink dress, by hand, like my mother taught me. Mostly because I couldn't afford a sewing machine.
2015
That black taffeta Dress came with me.......I was not the neatest sewer, my stitches slopped and slid, but I got it done. It was the first thing I ever made for real.
1995 Kimberley Crest, Redlands CA
Few years down the road I needed a Master's grad concert dress. My mother said I shouldn't wear the black taffetta. She would make me something , even though .
In the mail arrived a shimmering rose satin gown. She'd made it from memory. And it was beautiful.
1987 Masters Grad
Stockings
The Black taffeta Dress has stayed close by all these years, as I wade my way through life. And the bling is calling............
2019
Mr. Pooh-pers helps
Black Taffeta circa 1984As long as I can remember. Yes. There's been needle and thread. Now, I have a lot of fabric, beads, glitter, sari strips. I am a fabric hoarder, I freely admit it. And I love it.
When I first wanted to sew, my mother showed me a back stitch, gave me some scraps of fabric and told me to start with Barbie clothes.I had to take off their arms and legs and heads to make anything fit. I threw away the fabric and kept the broken dolls.
my first sewed quilt 1995
My mother used to sew everything on her big Singer sewing machine....professional grade. Great big machine mounted on a wrought iron table. I used to play underneath with my headless barbie dolls.
2011 big quilts
Memory Quilt 2017
1984
She stitched a lot of it by hand, because she said taffeta did not like a sewing machine. But it did like hand stitching. It was fine and beautiful. I wore it for years to come. Her fingers worked that fabric. Her fingers sewed and counted stitches.
2019 Underground RailroadOne year, when I was in university down in California I needed something for a quartet concert. I made a pink dress, by hand, like my mother taught me. Mostly because I couldn't afford a sewing machine.
2015That black taffeta Dress came with me.......I was not the neatest sewer, my stitches slopped and slid, but I got it done. It was the first thing I ever made for real.
1995 Kimberley Crest, Redlands CA
I was colour co-ordinated at least!.
Few years down the road I needed a Master's grad concert dress. My mother said I shouldn't wear the black taffetta. She would make me something , even though .
1987 Masters Grad
I had not seen my mother in a couple of years. We argued a lot on the phone.We were like oil and water. But home was home. I wanted to come home. She didn't want me to. She was adamant about that. So I stayed away, like she asked.
Stockings
2019
Photographs 2019
Thursday, April 19, 2018
Bags......
- Issey Miyake
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