 |
| Mum at 92 |
My mum was born 109 years ago last week so I’ve been thinking about her a lot. There are a couple of things I’ve been contemplating lately that she always used to do that I thought I’d never do. I’ve mentioned before that I hate sewing. It still isn’t my favourite thing to do studying lutherie has taught me patience, and not just patience for the things I love to do. I’m finding that if I slow down, take things one step at a time, and don’t think about how long I would like something to take, I can usually get things done. It always takes longer than I think it should but if I can put that out of my mind the task becomes less frustrating.
A couple of years ago, before going to Australia and New Zealand, I bought two shirts made from merino wool. I wanted ones with collars and, at that time, they had no collared shirts for women, so I bought mens. They fit pretty well except that the sleeves are about five inches too long. Being a confirmed sewing-hater, I took the easy way out and moved the buttons on the cuffs so the sleeves wouldn’t flap down over my hands. That sort of works but there is still all this extra material in the sleeves that doesn’t need to be there. I keep thinking how much more I would enjoy the shirts if the sleeves were shorter. So off I go to YouTube where there are a handful of videos on how to shorten the sleeves on a man’s shirt. I watched them and then watched the clearest one a few more times.
It’s not rocket science. It is fussy, although it's easy enough to understand what needs to be done. I decided to shorten the sleeves on the two shirts. Mum would be very surprised. She was present for the hissy fits I had when I was forced to sew in junior high. I’m amazed at how much I learned from her, just by sitting and watching and listening to her explain things. I’m fairly confident that I can shorten the sleeves without making a total mess of the shirts. I rescued one of Richard’s shirts that was destined for Good Will in order to practice on. I’ve gotten as far as taking off the cuff and taking apart the placket on one sleeve. I figure I’ll do one sleeve beginning to end before I tackle the second one. That way I’ll be able to refer to the sleeve that is still intact if I need to check something out. I want to have the shirts done in the next week or two.
I can’t say I’m looking forward with delight to the project but I’m fairly motivated to achieve the result. I think that’s probably the difference. When I had to take sewing there were so many other things that I’d rather have been doing, and I just wanted to get it over with. Fast forward a lot of years, and I realize that if you’re not proficient at something it’s going to take you longer than someone who is experienced and proficient. That means being patient enough to make mistakes, undo them, and then start again. I’m not even going to estimate how long it will take me to get the shirts done. I’ll look again at the video, take my computer to the sewing machine for reference, put an audiobook on, and from there it will take as long as it takes. If I get really frustrated I’ll walk away and come back to it later. I’m pretty sure I can do this.
Update a couple of days later: I spent some time yesterday with Richard’s old shirt. The process for shortening the sleeves is to remove the cuff, then remove both sides of the placket, cut off the sleeve to the correct length, lengthen the slit for the placket, and then put the placket and the cuff back on.
While I was reviewing the videos I came across one I hadn’t seen. In this one the woman simply removed the cuff, cut the sleeve to length and then sewed the cuff back on. If the placket opening is a little smaller, oh well. As long as you can get your hand through it that’s fine.
It’s not rocket science. It is fussy, although it's easy enough to understand what needs to be done. I decided to shorten the sleeves on the two shirts. Mum would be very surprised. She was present for the hissy fits I had when I was forced to sew in junior high. I’m amazed at how much I learned from her, just by sitting and watching and listening to her explain things. I’m fairly confident that I can shorten the sleeves without making a total mess of the shirts. I rescued one of Richard’s shirts that was destined for Good Will in order to practice on. I’ve gotten as far as taking off the cuff and taking apart the placket on one sleeve. I figure I’ll do one sleeve beginning to end before I tackle the second one. That way I’ll be able to refer to the sleeve that is still intact if I need to check something out. I want to have the shirts done in the next week or two.
I can’t say I’m looking forward with delight to the project but I’m fairly motivated to achieve the result. I think that’s probably the difference. When I had to take sewing there were so many other things that I’d rather have been doing, and I just wanted to get it over with. Fast forward a lot of years, and I realize that if you’re not proficient at something it’s going to take you longer than someone who is experienced and proficient. That means being patient enough to make mistakes, undo them, and then start again. I’m not even going to estimate how long it will take me to get the shirts done. I’ll look again at the video, take my computer to the sewing machine for reference, put an audiobook on, and from there it will take as long as it takes. If I get really frustrated I’ll walk away and come back to it later. I’m pretty sure I can do this.
Update a couple of days later: I spent some time yesterday with Richard’s old shirt. The process for shortening the sleeves is to remove the cuff, then remove both sides of the placket, cut off the sleeve to the correct length, lengthen the slit for the placket, and then put the placket and the cuff back on.
While I was reviewing the videos I came across one I hadn’t seen. In this one the woman simply removed the cuff, cut the sleeve to length and then sewed the cuff back on. If the placket opening is a little smaller, oh well. As long as you can get your hand through it that’s fine.
Since I had already dismantled the placket on one sleeve I shortened that one and put it all back together. It’s not beautiful. My new sewing machine has a different sort of pressure foot on it so I can’t line up the seam the way I could on my old one and a lot of this reconstruction requires top stitching. My seams are not straight. On the second sleeve I decided to try the easier fix. On the practice shirt the cuff comes right in the middle of the button hole that is on the placket. I think on the wool shirts the sleeves are long enough that I’ll be able to trim them above that button hole. If not, I’m not too fussed about it. They will still function. That’s on my ‘To Do’ list for today. I’m not even going to think about how long it will take. I will finish when I finish. I think Mum would be not only surprised but a little bit pleased.
 |
| The hard way |
 |
| The easy way |
2 comments:
Enjoyed this post about your Mom (my auntie Mary) and your sewing experience. My own Mom never sewed and it was my first boyfriend's mom in high school, Muriel Uzzell, who patiently taught me how to sew, and helped me make all my "fancy" clothes for the proms etc. since i couldn't afford to buy them. (Back then it was much cheaper to DIY but i believe that's not the case now with much of our clothing being imported from countries that utilize slave and child labour!!)
Consequently i really appreciated sewing as practical AND creative. I still have Muriel's old machine, my first, as well as four or five others, as i tried to improve my skills by improving my machines...didn't work! I have pretty much given up and the local dry cleaners had a great alterations department for a while that was so cheap it wasn't worth trying myself - $10 for hemming pants, etc. but now they would charge three to four times that so i must be prepared to dust off the machines and go it alone. My hat's off to you, and thanks for the Youtube tip!
Hi Sue. Thanks for the comment. I know exactly what you mean by trying to improve skills by improving equipment. I tried that with woodworking and it didn't work for me either!
Post a Comment