Days of Sewing...

 “Christmas is doing a little something extra .”   ― Charles M. Schulz

 A sneak peak at  some of the Christmas stuff I've been stitching the past couple of months. Never too early to start playing with fabric and thread and so forth....My mother would start in May to plan what she would sew. One year it was a Raggedy Ann Doll, another year it was Winnie the Pooh. All made out of fabric she had stuffed in the dresser. That dresser just overflowed. I used to pull it out, when she wasn't home and wrap myself in the silks and satins and parade around the house pretending I was royalty.

 "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." -Serena Williams

tea cozy....not a hat!

 First thing my mother taught me to sew was a bathing suit for my beat up Barbie doll. I liked to make Barbie go swimming in the tub. She was rather water logged.  And she needed a bathing suit.  So that was first.  Then a hat, and a cape. Later, came a short dress. Really hard getting her sticky legs and arms to slide into that tight dress, which promptly ripped and I decided to tape it with masking tape.                        
                       

"I have a sewing machine that I adore, and I spend a lot of time sitting in front of it... And any excuse to  do something artistic with my hands really gets me going. Definitely aspiring." - India de Beaufort

 I remember in Gr. 8 we all took sewing classes.  For Christmas we had to make a stuffed animal. I ended up making a lion with crooked eyes and lopsided ears that didn't quite fold over. I got a C on it. It was made with leftover satin from my mother's fabric stash and I thought it was pretty great. Some other girl made a bird of some sort. I'd like to say a buzzard. It had a yellow beak. She got an A .

 My mother had a  seamstress style super charged  Singer sewing machine that she would work on, till the wee hours of the morning. I loved hearing the loud whirrrrrr of the machine as it  reamed through fabric. At Christmas she always made a flannel nightgown, or  long dress in bright cotton.  I would hear her turn on the radio in her room as she sewed away into the night, trying to get it all ready . She would talk to the cat who would sit on the dresser beside her. 

 One year, I begged for some leopard print. So she turned me into a Leopard for halloween. How I LOVED that costume. I wore it two years running...maybe even tried for three, but I got too tall for it. It was something she made about a year after my dad died.  Again, she sewed till the early hours of the morning to get it done in time. My fav part was the tail....

 "My mother had a sewing machine. I was never allowed to use it, but I was so fascinated by this little needle going up and down joining fabric together that I'd use it when my mother went out...." - Philip Treacy

More tea cozies using recycled fabrics and beading.

 I got into quilting  back when we lived in Cornwallis, Nova Scotia. My good friend, Judy gave me a beautiful music themed wall quilt that she designed and hand made........It was an incredible gift.

I still have it. . She inspired me to start quilting.  We moved to Fredericton right afterwards, and from then on I just couldn't get enough of learning to quilt, then learning to experiment with fabric, dyeing it in tea to make it old, adding beading, etc. Recycling fabrics.  Quilting was not something I had considered before this time. By the time I had done my first quilt I was hooked.

 “I wish we could put up some of the Christmas spirit in jars and open a jar of it every month.”            ― Harlan Miller

 The year that Princess Diana married Prince Charles my mother made me  a black concert dress in black silk, with the same sleeves that were on Diana's dress. I wore that for every orchestra concert, every recital.  It always amazed me that my mother did it without a pattern. She just looked at the picture of Diana's dress, nodded her head, put her glasses on her nose and got to work. The silk crinkled and crumpled under her hands. It was beautiful.

When I graduated it was the dress we used for grad pics.  My mother hand stitched the gathers to make sure the silk did not tear. Most of it she made without a sewing machine. She told me that good fabric required extra patience extra time.
                               
 When she died I had to sell the old Singer. That huge old ancient machine. I had no room in the new house on the base to keep it in. We were going to be stationed at Petawawa, Ontario. Long ways away. The lady I sold it to was thrilled . I wasn't so thrilled at first. When I was a kid, I used to hang that soggy old Barbie upside down under the machine and pretend I was feeding her to the sharks below. Then I would pop off Barbie's head and toss it down to the waiting imaginary, gnashing teeth.....

 Those were  the good old days of sewing....................

 “There are some wonderful aspects to Christmas. It's magical. And each year, from at least November, well, September, well, if I'm honest, May, I look forward to it hugely.”     ― Miranda Hart, Is It Just Me?