It might be the Great British Sewing Bee effect. It might be wanting more responsible fashion, or something different from what’s on the high street. Or it might be simply the sheer joy of creating something lovely – and the satisfaction of wearing it, but sewing your own clothes has leapt from ‘a bit worthy’ straight into the mainstream. Homemade no longer means homespun.
I’ve been wearing homemade clothes for years, and I love them. The whole process of ‘I want something like this’, choosing the fabric, the pattern, helping with making it. But I can’t sew, it’s my other half, the Beloved, who can. He’s an engineer so he’s really good at making things (jewellery, frocks for me, and he mends things. I know: sickening.) Whenever I approach the sewing machine, the thing sees it’s me, and plays up, coming unthreaded every 10 seconds, eating thread and fabric, producing nothing more than an unedifying mess of tattered cotton and swear words. I’ve tried, really I have, but it clearly knows who its master is. And it’s certainly not me.
This has to change.
Making something unique
An hour or so later, and I’ve a piece of paper covered in sewn lines, with varying degrees of straightness (yeah, like the walk-a-straight-line test, some have more of the 2-shots of vodka look than others) and a ridiculous sense of achievement. It’s not quite the something unique I anticipated, but the air is not blue, and I’m looking forward to next week – and maybe trying some fabric.
