Sewing as Spectator Sport

      Back when I was in high school, I wrote the screenplay for a movie set in Philadelphia in the late 1890s. I went on to design all the costumes for the leading lady, and I even sewed my own version of one of them for myself.

    I knew nothing about how to structure such garments, nor anything about the foundation pieces necessary to make them fit properly. I just liked the look. I liked it so much my career goal was to make it to Hollywood to work for one of the big costume shops, whichever one was the go-to for historical films.

    I say this to show I've always been interested in historical dress. But I didn't go into fashion design, I went into Architecture. And once I was out and working, the only people into that sort of thing were the Society for Creative Anachronism and those who worked at the annual Renaissance Festival. I had no idea how to break into either, I just knew it took a lot of time and money. I had neither. So I let it slide.

    But now the Internet, especially YouTube, abounds with creative people who specialize in making historic clothing, from all periods. Bernadette Banner, Morgan Donner, Cathy Hay, Izabella Pitcher (Prior Attire), Zack Pinsent-- they all do gorgeous, well-crafted, historically-accurate garments. If I had anywhere to wear the sort of things they produce, I'd join right in.

    Alas, there are no balls in my foreseeable future. But they have inspired me to purchase a dress form, pad it out, and get going on some everyday sewing. Even now, I've got the pieces for a flannel nightgown cut out, having sized it up from a cotton gown I bought in 2000 or so that no longer fits me through the bust. It involves the velvet insets I spoke of in my previous post, plus lace that will need mitering and all the rest of it. We'll see how I do, with no instructions to follow.

    But here's the thing: I've gotten so used to watching my favorite CosTubers go at their projects, it feels I'm leaving something out or letting the side down by not filming the process to post on my own YouTube channel (yeah, I have one). Is it really creative sewing if I'm not documenting the process to teach and encourage others? Where are my camera, my tripod, my lights? Where's my care to show each step, including the ones I mess up and have to redo? Where's my script for the final voiceover, and where is my software for producing this video and getting that voiceover on?

   Nowhere. I have none of the necessary equipment, and it isn't in the budget. Neither do I have the time to learn to use them or to figure out how to get the best angles and so on. Woe is me, I have entered into the arena of creative sewing, and haven't let in any fans.

  It can't be helped. The best I can do is post occasional photos here or on Facebook or Instagram. In that spirit, here's a picture of the pattern layout, which you see uses about every last square inch of the flannel I bought in November. I guessed at how much I'd need, and was off by half a yard. But piecing is historical, right? I can pretend I'm sewing right along with my favorite CosTubers, whether I am or not.

Time Capsule

 Tonight I had cause to open a storage trunk containing fabric remnants, uncut lengths of cloth, used patterns, cabbage--- all the detritus of a life of sewing that goes back to junior high school. I was looking for some black velvet to eke out a piece I'd found already, as I mean to use it to trim a red plaid flannel nightgown I'm making for myself.

    I didn't find any more black velvet. I found some brown, and some dark blue . . . and something else. I found that that old trunk was a kind of time capsule, and not necessarily one that made me look back on how things used to be. It made me feel they should be as they used to be and seized my heart to protest that they no longer are.

    All those remnants, so bright and unfaded. A lot of the garments I made with them, I still have. Can I fit into them any more? Not for a long time. Are they shabby and worn? Yes. But the smooth, unmarked material in the trunk was calling me back to the days when they were new. 

    What was I doing then? What was I looking forward to? Whom did I know and love, whom I no longer see, and never will again in this world?

    I shook out the uncut lengths of silk, cotton, and wool, and recollected what I'd intended to make of it. Is that all in the past, too? Have I enough future and enough creativity left so it won't go to waste?

    Like a heady and bittersweet perfume, hiraeth rose out of that trunk like a mind-altering drug. I'd never before thought of it as a time capsule, still less as a faulty time machine that could wrench me into the past, while at the same time leaving me here. But that's exactly what it was.