Everything Old is New Again

 

 
I really am trying to use up my stash of materials. These 3 projects sort of go together because they all had a previous life as other things. I showed you the scooter skirt already, but it's worth mentioning that I made it out of the skirt of a half finished dress Mom abandoned back in the late 60's or so.

Why didn't I just finish the dress? Because it was cut along very similar lines to the pink and white one in the picture below. As you can see, it is a terribly dumpy looking fit on me. Mom is nearly 4 inches shorter than I am, and all of it is torso. The waist line any dress made for Mom cuts me right across my 3rd rib from the bottom. So, no point in making up the dress as it was. The material is too stiff and coarse to make a good blouse, but it's just perfect for a short a-line skirt. I'm very happy with it.

Before...

But then there was still the pink and white dress. It's one of a pair, also from Mom, but made by Great Aunt Gatha. When I was little, Aunt Gatha's sewing was held to be an acme of durable clothing construction. And durable it was- although looking at it now what comes to mind is the bit by some comedian, maybe Jeff Foxworthy, where he was talking about his redneck relatives fixing something with duct tape: If one or two layers will fix it, then 40 or 50 layers will fix the hell out of it. These dresses are obsessively, if startlingly coarsely, assembled. The waistband had a piece of material tacked in as a stay, to which the bodice and skirt were affixed by machine, having first been basted in place with what looks like button hole twist. Both parts were previously gatherd by hand with the same coarse thread. All basting and gathering threads had been left in place. Each seam had been closely but unevenly overcast by hand, and the hem of the skirt as well as the facing of the bodice placket had been whip stitched in very small, closely spaced stitches of rather erratic appearance. The under arm seams hadn't even been clipped so as to allow the side seam to flex without puckering the armpit! Altogether, the construction was rather lumpy.

After!

These two dresses were neither in wearable nor collectable condition by the time they came to me. The shoulders were dry rotted, the collars stained, and there were serious mouse bites in various places. But they were made in the 50's, which means that there is a mile of fabric in the skirt. With a little scootching and fudging, there was exactly enough to cut a hawaiian shirt for David out of it. I have a nice vintage shirt pattern that suits the material perfectly.

The third thing is this wing collar shirt I made for myself. It's the second shirt I've made out of this pair of curtains, the first being a Halloween costume I made for Cynthia. It has the distinction of being made not only out of material from goodwill, but made out of something I actually used for its original purpose for some years. Eventually I moved out of places that had windows you could put normal curtains in, and I remembered that I had actually wanted to make clothing out of them in the first place. It took me a very long time to finish this shirt because I lost interest halfway through, for no reason that I can remember, especially as I am very excited about the finished result. I always thought that tuxedo shirts were the fanciest thing imaginable, and I really wanted one.

The thing that inspired me was the idea to merge the bust darts in the front of the shirt with the seam where the pleated section is inserted. The result is a fit that is very feminine and curvy, but clean and uncluttered the way a man's shirt is. Also, I finally managed to get the proportion of sleeve width, body width, size of arm hole and length of shirt tail worked out so that it looks right and feels comfortable. I feel very luxurious wearing it.

As David said about his pink and white shirt: "Yeah, this is a really good shirt. I feel like a badass wearing it."

Sartorial Cream of Cthulhu Soup

Food and clothing are my two main obsessions, and mostly this post is about clothes. This vest, in particular. It must be the ugliest damn thing I've ever made. But it reminds me of a phenomenon I usually encounter when cooking; that of using up leftovers. Which brings me to the soup of the title.

Alas, no pictures were taken of the soup. It was a thing for the ages. For those of you who do not know the story of the cream of cthulhu soup, it was something my dad made when I was in high school. It was a cream soup. It otherwise consisted mainly of turkey feet and squid heads.

No foolin.

It was the color of a dirty eraser, was slightly curdled, opaque, and had claws and tentacles rising up out of it. I think nobody but my dad and Pete had the balls to actually try eating it. It was, as dad said, "a little strange". It has nothing whatsoever to do with this vest, except the similarity in mode of manufacture. Not so long ago, at a family dinner, something recalled the infamous soup to me, and as usual I said something rhetorical-'what could he have been thinking?' blah blah. Pete, who witnessed its birth, so to speak, described a cascading series of accidents and errors the result of which was so startling, and bore so little resemblance to the original concept that the finished product acquired a near mythic stature.

Now, I don't think my vest has anything like that degree of verve. The thing is, I could not tell you what I thought this was going to look like when I started out. I liked the plaid. The cloth has a nice feel, I thought the colors would go well with the rest of my clothes. And I had a good-ish bit left from making a skirt. But then it seemed that there wasn't quite enough to make a vest. Unless I cut it out on the bias. But then there really wasn't enough to match any of the plaids. Oh well. And then there were the darts, which changed the direction of the stripes halfway down the front. And I had to cut the back in 2 pieces, not one, so there was yet another seam. Then I thought that patch pockets would be so much easier, and maybe they would look cool if I cut those on the diagonal as well... And after that, what the hell, giant gold buttons and red topstitching? Might as well go with it.

Do I think it was waste of my efforts? No way. Do I like it? Hell yes. I have worn it in public 3 times now, and each time it has inspired me to pull together the goofiest outfits and wear them with aplomb. Clothing should be fun, and sometimes it should be downright funny. This stupid vest cracks me up. I'm gonna wear it until everybody who knows me is sick of it. Maybe someday I will wear it to pick up my nieces at school, and it will embarrass them. And if by some miracle, it survives that long, in some far distant time, maybe one of them will be a stylish young woman digging through my old crap and she will pick up my ugly vest any say Holy shit! I remember this thing! Can I wear it?

That's how I got my pants.