4/21/10

I'm going to dedicate this blog to my Mother, who would have turned 89 today.
She loved clothes and shopping and took pride in being different then everyone else. When I was very young, I remember she used to sew too. But, she loved to use this one pattern of a cut away tent dress and would make it in many different fabrics. She didn't have the best of skills, but this pattern was only 3 pieces, so she really couldn't mess it up. Besides, my Grandparents were professionals and could fix anything. Anyway, Mom would sew it up and then embellish it with pearls or beads around the neck band. Actually, she could have made a burlap sack look good. She just knew how to wear clothes. One time she made this dress in a white 4ply silk crepe and decided it had to be a little more dressy, so she took a quarter and outlined it all over the dress in pencil leaving about 2" between each circle. Then she gave it to my Grandmother to sew gold bugle beads around each circle covering the pencil marks. It was gorgeous! This is the garment that opened up my eyes to a whole new world. It is amazing how your life can change on a dime, well in this case it was a quarter.
There are two other stories that come to mind that make me smile. The first was on my Brother's wedding day. Mom's dress was a pink silk crepe with beading along 12" of the hem and about 6" at the end of each bell sleeve, that she bought at an expensive boutique. It was so hot on the day of his August wedding, that she actually cut off the long sleeves that had all the beading, and hemmed them into short sleeves that morning. Can you imagine that! Who does that!
For my Niece's wedding, she wanted to wear this beautiful aqua brocade dress with a matching jacket that I made for another function because it was her favorite piece. When she took it out of the dry cleaning bag, there were all these yellowish spots here and there. She was so upset because the wedding was only a week away. Nothing like waiting for the last minute! Anyway, I sewed clear iridescent sequins on top of each and every spot and it camouflaged it so beautifully that no one knew that they were put there for a reason. Friends and relatives still comment how beautiful that outfit was, when in fact, I think it was my Mom that made the outfit so memorable.