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Fancy That!

Many years ago, when my kids were small, I often had to make them fancy dress, or costumes for school plays. Back then, you couldn’t just go to the supermarket and pick up a ‘dressing up’ outfit, you had to have a go yourself.
I didn’t sew much for myself for years, but gradually started making a fair bit for other people. Like most of us, I barely charged at all, not feeling that my skills were high enough to be worth much! Recently, my mother in law pulled out a dress I made for her about 25 years ago [I used to be her neighbour], and although I really didn’t remember making it, I was surprised to see that it actually wasn’t half bad! [Hindsight is twenty twenty vision]
Anyway, this was way back in the late eighties/early 90s, and I made quite a few wedding dresses, and gazillions of bridesmaids’ dresses. Of course, they weren’t all strapless and corseted back then. more big sleeves, huge skirts, flounces and netty petties.
DSCF7361I think I used to charge about £25 for a bridesmaid dress, and £50-£100 for a wedding dress, not including fabrics. I still felt cheeky asking for the money!
Anyhew, apart from the opera costumes, I made very little between 1992 and 1996 as I’d started university as a mature student, and life was WAY too complicated.
Again, apart from the odd garment for someone else, or a curtain or so, the machine rarely got used until the lights really went back on when I had my first hip operation just before my 50th birthday. I needed a dress, and I had time to sew.
halloween 2009

And sew. And sew. Gradually starting to realise that it wasn’t going to be as easy as it used to be to just grab a pattern and make something I could wear.
I made a few things for the then-fiancee, who’s much less lumpy than me.  We had some costume parties.  Fun.385869_10150338503070925_537505924_8539935_1962079029_n DSCF1722

THEN my youngest daughter announced that she would be getting married in 2012, I bought a new machine [then another], found The Sewing Forum, and I haven’t looked back.

Part of me wants to make more wedding dresses [I really love it] but oh, the insurance, the time, the bridezillas…

Nah, I’ll just sort out the next lot of fabric and do some cutting out.  Now, where’s that silver coated linen?…

5 thoughts on “Fancy That!”

  1. You are very talented and I love your outfits, especially the ones you made for your own wedding. You both look so happy and beautiful. I made my wedding dress in 1970 and I was very pleased with that but I would ‘t try to make one for anybody else. The fitting issues are bad enough for myself, let alone some other body. I would like a week long residential course on fitting, preferably somewhere lovely, like Cumbria with like minded old sewers!

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    1. Aw thanks! I never used to need to fit anything- basically if it didn’t work out of the packet I assumed I’d done something wrong lol. I know better now, and have many many more fitting issues…sigh time is cruel.

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  2. I know what you mean about feeling cheeky asking for the money.
    I’ve been altering clothes for over 30 years now…The only job I’ve ever done and I still feel awkward when I say how much somebody owes me.
    You’d have thought I’d have a bit more faith in my own ability by now.

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