My Beautiful Sisters! and the textile arts

These dresses are from the 80's.

I'm not going to tell exactly how old these girls are... but- those dresses are well over 20 years old!

The neat thing???

The sisters can still fit in them in 2008!!

You GO, GIRLS!!!

The other neat thing... they were sewed by our grandmother, Mae!

Which brings me to the subject of sewing and textile arts.

Growing up- most of our nice clothes were sewed or altered by our grandmothers. Our mama didn't sew except for that one time one of us had to have a reindeer outfit for the Christmas pageant. The story of how one child appeared looking like an extra terrestrial being is legendary in East Texas.

Mae tried to encourage each of us girls to sew- and sometimes we actually finished a project. Mine usually were whump-sided and she had to do some serious alterations in order for me to wear it even inside the house and it probably wasn't going out in public either.

Grandmother Nancy was always sewing costumes for her drama classes and she had the most luscious fabrics.... all glittery and spangles. Probably not the best for little girls out in public either- but, since I couldn't sew all that well anyway and when I was at her house for too short of a time period to actually finish a sewing project- I made do with just draping and wrapping all those lovely textiles. Had some really great shawls and veils, too!! I decided then and there my sewing efforts should be limited to costume events only and since I attend so few of those- it wasn't going to be necessary for me to have to address the Singer very often.

That's not to say that throughout the years of dear son growing up I got away without sewing... when he was young I did sew several costumes and in a fit of domestic/holiday euphoria a "little Lord Fauntleroy" outfit with a companion jumper for me! No snarky comments on the 80's hair there, sisters... you suffered it, too- remember?

And, isn't Jess just such a sweet little boy?? He was! Still can be at times!

The fact is both my sisters can sew. Very well. One can quilt. As can our SIL, click here for her site! And, my MIL is the best seamstress I know! I'm not sure if she's ever quilted- but, she could if she chose.

Me? I admire their lovely handiwork and love to go to quilt shows; but, just content myself with paint & paper, glue and inks and a rubber stamp that looks like stitches.

Until last month.

I found some fabric on eBay that I just swooned over. At first I thought it was paper and hit the buy-it-now button before realizing it was *gasp* fabric. Oh MAN! What have I done???

Oh, well it's okay. I like pretty fabrics. Occasionally I drool over them in the notions department when I'm selecting some calico for Mae's quilting projects and I do have a small fabric stash that I use to make decorative "puddles" around my house.

Hmmm.... my own quilting project. That can't be tooo hard, right? There are so many mixed media artists out there doing this very thing.... it's do-able! I can quilt! I just know I can! In retrospect the 9 patch square pillow top I made way back in Camp Fire Girls was a bit hideous... but, I've matured since then. Surely I can sew a straight seam- I mean how hard can that be? I can draw a straight line, right? Right!

Fabric arrives. Man! It's so cute! Not quite enough to make a real statement.... go to Hobby Lobby to pick a couple of complimentary patterns to make the project large enough.... oh! There's so many to choose from! I can't choose! I bring home a yard each of seven different patterns. A tad bit overboard but I can easily see me cranking out a dozen or so of these little creations!

Discuss with Mae just how to get started... oh! What a PAIN! I'd forgotten you had to WASH, dry and iron the fabric before you even got to cut it! UGH. BORING!

Now I'm beginning to remember just why I hated whipping up a cute little dress from "McCall's Fast & Easy Only 3 Steps to a Lovely Sundress". My 3 steps- choose fabric, snip, sew. Their 3 steps... includes a 12 page (that is map sized pages by the way) pattern (oh, I'd forgotten how much I hate diagrams, too!) of seam allowances, dart points, bias and selvage compensations, arggghhh.... my blood pressure is going up just recalling it all!

After a chill-pill and a glass of wine- I'm now ready to cut my squares. I remember the old adage; measure once, cut twice. Or is it? Well. Whatever!

Before long I'm going to be the happy quilter working away on my lovely little piece of art, the birds are singing, the creative juices are flowing- I can see myself offering gorgeous pieces of hand-dyed, original textile arts for sale on ETSY and being featured in the likes of "Cloth, Paper, Scissors".

Okay. Straight seam sewing. Not a problem. Because I like to look at projects and figure the short-cuts; I figure sewing all my squares into strips is the most expedient way to get the piece work outta the way and onto the more important (read that FUN part) of quilting.

Snip, zip, strip. This is going fabulously! It's EASY! Three horizontal strips (rows for those of you thinking like a word processor). Now... to combine those three strips into one lovely 9 patch.

Wait a minute... those seams are STRAIGHT! So why is my 9 patch so whumper-sided??? It looks as if some drunk seamstress tried to replicate Picaso in fabric. What's up with THAT?? Why??? Everything was even and symmetrical when they were plain little squares, and again when they were plain little strips. Why can't I do THIS??? Just "sew" you'll know... I was only kidding about the wine earlier- I know better than to try to stitch "under the influence" as it were... but- why aren't these darned squares even????

Take it to Mae. She'll help. You know what she said??? "How do you sew such straight seams?" HA!!! Ta-DAAAHHHHHH! I'm glowing! She also says it's easier to start from the center of the strip and sew out then to try to line everything up from one end and expect the other end to not get stretched in the meantime.

All right..... I'm cooking with gas, now- baby!!

And, then she drops the hammer. "What design do you intend to use for the quilting?". That's easy.... I've heard that term "stitch in the ditch" many times on the quilt shows! Besides-- if it was easy enough for me to straight sew these seams then it was going to be a breeze to do the same with three layers.

But she says...."by machine? Why would you do that? Why would you want anything quilted if it wasn't done by hand? Who would want THAT?" uhhhhh..... I'm flummoxed.

I wasn't intending on doing this project by HAND!!! No WAY!. Hello?? All the quilt-artisans (including my SIL and sister) are quilting with a machine! Hadn't she realized this? No, she'd not by the way... just thought they had extraordinary skill!

*to be continued"

Link to the finished project here.