“Some of the worst mistakes in my life were haircuts”
― Jim Morrison
Previously ...
NOSTALGIA JOURNAL - From Crafts, Arts & Illusions
SH-BOOM! Being a Tourist in ones own Town - Vintage Feelings
DIY ART DECO FASHION - What is it about the 1920s?
Travel with me to ITALY - FASHION, FOOD AND MOUNTAINS
In this journal
I show you again my art of sewing, some "making off" and give you little insights into the social life here in my city, Hamburg.
Sewing is a grounding and practical activity,
I present two garments I have made,
the caftan dress in fine and airy cotton from above and a pair of mini check trousers in sturdy stretch cotton. I use organic fabrics whenever possible, in the case of the trousers I have made a small concession because of the stretch content of four percent. At my age, you need a little freedom for the belly.
Pleasure out of monotony
Many of my homemade pieces are made from second-hand clothes that I thrift on fabric hunts, in oversizes, to unravel them and then adjust the cut to my body. It's a rather monotonous job, separating the seams, but in a way contemplative, like everything that repeats itself in a steady rhythm.
Checked trousers in a cut I picked out from one of my magazines, which has a high waist, just the way I like it. The colour is a light grey and white.
Yet monotony is only superficially a fact.
If you do it yourself, you realize how little it has to do with boredom. Working uniformly is never really uniform. Since we humans are not machines that achieve the same precision as such machines, the small deviations are always present, even if you can hardly see them when you look at the whole thing.
How often a piece is touched by me during completion is remarkable. I touch the fabric all the time, it is guided under my fingers, pushed here and there, actually my sweat and sometimes my blood goes into it. But to do something in the wake of sweat is not a punishment. It is a pleasure. When self chosen.
Here I am trying out the placement and colours of the buttons on the outside pockets, which I designed myself with a rounded corner, as the original cut didn't have any pockets. I don't wear trousers without pockets, otherwise I miss something.
How else are you supposed to walk along the paths, and whistling a little tune when your hands find no pockets?
In the end, I didn't sew on any buttons; they would only have had an aesthetic function, not a practical one.
Zip is already integrated (it is in the back and not in the front), here I also changed the original cut. The waistband still needs to be sewn on.
I try the fit of the trousers
before attaching the waistband. I always do this step beforehand, because then I can make any changes without major problems. Once the waistband is sewn on, a fit that is too tight or too wide can only be done by removing it again.
In this picture the crotch seam is also not sewn yet, but only secured with pins. You bet I pricked into my butt several times. As you can see, the legs are still much too long. In this fitting, I also pin the length of them.
Down below - A seamstress who thinks she is unobserved, in an uncomfortable position in front of the sewing machine. As my eyes are not the very best, I bend over the sewing work as if my life depended on it. My husband is the culprit when we visit my parents' house where my brothers live. The living and dining room are unchanged. We breathe the atmosphere of times past in this room. It is very cosy there.
Maybe that's why I like to sew by hand, because I bring the work to me instead of bending over it.
Clothes & Hairstyle determine how people treat you in public.
So does your age. There's not much you can do about it, that's just the way people are. I experiment with it and sometimes leave the house in sweatpants, with no hair-fashion (just a bun on my head) and glasses that are about the thickness of a Coca-Cola bottle. I get overlooked, no one flirts with me and I do best meeting people who already know me. Otherwise, I'm less well served in the shops. HaHa! It's like this! I'm not complaining.
When I want attention, I make myself pretty, change my glasses for contact lenses, paint my eyeliner and dress extravagantly. I love to dress up and notice how much it changes me. Walk, posture, the whole attitude. I feel sophisticated or business, attractive or demure. Like a little theatre play.
Three times a week it's market day here.
The foreign traders give me winking looks, they know what a good salesman is. I know that men from the Orient like to show women that they find them beautiful. If I'm looking for compliments, that's where I go to get them. It's friendly and wonderfully superficial. I satisfy my other social needs at the ordinary supermarket queue. Where you can strike up a conversation with all sorts of impossible people.
Down here in the building, directly four floors below me is a small tailor shop.
When I pick up the jacket, we start talking. I ask him if I can come and watch him sewing from time to time. He is straightforward and says "yes, why not?" after asking me if I have some experience in tailoring. Which I confirm.
Since then I have been to his shop twice for a few hours and have already done some touch-up work for his customers. One would perhaps say "first-grade level" to it.
He comes from Afghanistan and has lived here for a long time, but he wants to improve his German and is happy to practise with me. His children are grown up. He has no attitudes whatsoever. He is a simple and social person. He asks me many questions about my origins, the homeland of my ancestors, we talk about this and that, his family and mine. I like him very much. If I make a mistake while sewing or don't understand something immediately, he doesn't harbour any impatience about it.
The little sumo wrestlers hold my pincushion. Every self-respecting woman needs feathers. A selection of sewing thread spools, a matter of course.
His workshop is half a mess! Every time, my fingers itch to clean it really thoroughly, but I only do a little bit at a time. Sweep up and dispose of the fabric scraps. I know when someone "cleans up" their own workspace and you never find anything afterwards. Everyone has their own order.
Reveal
I still owe the sewing result in the dressed state. Here are the trousers. For the dress - for which I alas have no material on "how it came to be" I costumed along this morning.
The Kaftan and how I outfitted myself reminds a bit of ancient hair- and fashion-styles, as the Greeks and Romans are often portrayed in films or paintings. I failed to drape voluminous fabric over the dress, but I won't go back and take another shot!
The thing is simple to sew. Just a rectangle and two holes for the arms.
To add an accent, I joined the two front pieces with a black centre stripe. For the neckline, you simply decide how high you want the seam to close at the front and back, and you're done. The only complicated part was the pockets. Yes, pockets should never be missing, did I say that? How did the Greek and Roman ladies actually store their necessities? But that's another topic.
This time I didn't show you any vintage variations. Maybe again in a future fashion and craft blog post.
Copyright on all pictures are mine.