The Backstory...
Many years ago, my mom got me a little kid sewing machine. It was pretty small, and I think the needle made it's up/down progress so slowly that it's surprising that anything actually sewed together. But it did, and for a year or so, despite that I was only about 4 years old, my Grandmother would sit down with me and patiently show me how to lay my Barbie dolls down on a piece of fabric and trace around their arms and legs for a shirt or a skirt pattern. She showed me how to add a little extra so that it would fit around the Barbie instead of just being a flat shape that had no hope at all of actually going on the doll. Those were my first sewing projects...clothes for Barbie.
Fast forward a few years, and I'm a teenager. And sewing was most definitely not my thing. Sewing was something that Mothers and Grandmothers did. Needless to say, I did not sew again until I was in my mid-twenties, as by then I was mature enough to realize that one did not need to be a Mother or a Grandmother to sew. I was lucky that I didn't forget how entirely, it took so long to wind my way back to it. I spent 6 or 7 years just being so-so at it. I wasn't terrible, but I wasn't very good, either. And you could see it, in the things that I made. They were shaped right and they stayed together at the seams. They even, generally, fit the person that they were made for, though it was far from a "couture" fit. And I would never want anyone to look too closely at the stitching, because I couldn't sew a straight line to save my life! I call those years the "Demolition Sewing" years. It was like a race to see how fast I could go without losing an eye or the tip of a finger. In my opinion, I didn't actually get any good at it until I hit my early thirties.
Then, shortly into my thirties, I became interested in making Victorian clothing. The sewing of Victorian clothing is what actually made me hone my sewing skills to a level at which I was pretty good at it. It would take far too many paragraphs to explain how I got there, but I place the blame for the sown seed at the feet of my friend, Laura. She set the spark that led to my better sewing skills. Though I would be self-conscious showing a close-up picture of something I had made at the beginning of my adult sewing life, I don't think I would have any qualms now about letting someone hold a piece I had made in the last five years and examine up close the seams and hand sewing, which is saying a lot.
Suddenly there I was, knee deep in the beginnings of a hobby that would take root and grow to enormous proportions. The dresses were beautiful. I loved the various styles, and how they changed so dramatically in shape basically every decade. I loved the ruffles and flowers and ribbons and bonnets...basically everything about that era's fashions. I spent hours of time looking at fashion plates online. I started buying patterns to make them. In fact, I believe that I owned 7 patterns before I actually sewed my first piece! But a passion for this particular hobby had erupted, and there would be no holding it in check.
Fast-forward to the present. My husband suggested a blog, so that I could put all my ramblings and pictures of the pieces I make in one place, and toss it out to the world at large. I wasn't too sure about it, and I procrastinated for months and months and months before getting to this post.
Here goes...
