Sewing

Charta Vitae

Started: 2009 and still going

At some point in the haze of the distant past, I found a sewing machine and took it home. I don’t know why I did it. It was pretty, made of metal like they used to make things. I’d never really sewn before – only seen my mom do it.

I’m not sure why I kept it, or when I started using it. But I do remember my first project, a pair of slim black pants made from the cheap curtain that formerly divided my freshman-year dorm room. Maybe I lucked out, because I always hear that people think pants are tough. But they fit great and I got compliments and I kept going.

By 2009, I’d made a few things that now make me shake my head – we all have to start somewhere, right? – Jackets, pants, t-shirts; I can see them in old photos and I remember wearing them, but the patterns, if I ever made paper patterns are long gone.

Later, I took an elective pattern-making course at DAAP, which helped a lot and by the time I graduated I was pretty decent. Not fashion-designer good, but better than a lot of home sewers. I still had the old machine (a 1963 Singer as it turns out) and my technical skills were getting better too. I could sew a straight line anyway.

So when I graduated into the abyss left by my own academic choices combined with the lingering remains of the great recession, I turned to sewing among other skills to make some cash. That didn’t pan out for a lot of structural reasons, but it did lead to some fun opportunities.

… (let us let this ellipsis stand in for several years)

My partner said to me today that he hasn’t bought pants in ten years. I’ve made all his pants for a decade. I’ve made all my pants for a decade now too I guess, and shirts, and the rest.

Its interesting, this hobby. People are usually pretty impressed when they find out I make all my own clothes. And sometimes I’m pretty proud of that. But also: isn’t this just one of those skills that used to be nearly universal, like gardening? The way cooking is now?