Fabric of My Life

I went to a fabric store today to buy snaps for some Barbie clothes I've knit.  Have you ever gone in for something --- some one thing --- that you could put in your purse, or pocket, and come out with a bag full of lots of other things?  So, I can take comfort in knowing that I am

Fabric stores are just about as dangerous for me as yarn shops.  Actually, maybe more so.  The patterns are right there.  You know exactly how much material to buy.  There are quilt quarters all bundled up, inviting you to make them into all sorts of things.  It doesn't take very much material at all to make a set of pillowcases, or a tote bag, or some napkins, or aprons, or baby clothes, or Babie clothes, or placemats.  And skirts --- man, do I love making skirts.

My mother sewed or knit virtually every stitch of clothing I wore until I began earning my own money and chose "fancy" store-bought over "square" handmade.  So, I spent many hours in fabric stores, looking through pattern books (we mostly went with McCall's or Simplicity --- Butterick was too pricey.)  Lots of time roaming the aisles, looking for material I liked AND my mother thought we could afford.  Too, would that fabric work for what I wanted, was it going to be easy to take care of, etc.  She was a wonder.  She made I-don't-know-how-many pairs of bell bottoms with pleats at the bottom of the side seams.  I never seemed to be without one-piece, zip-front rompers come Summer.  And, I don't know that it grabbed hold anywhere else, but for a while there, in Nashville, smocks were it.

Smocks worked for Mama and me, because she could use remnants for collars, pockets, cuffs, yokes, and I could be trendy.

I've never been too much of a seamstress, to be honest, but Hannah has an incredible gift for making clothes.  Without patterns, most of the time.  She can picture it in her mind, and reproduce it in cloth.  It's amazing.  Fabric stores are sort of dangerous for her, too.  But we go together whenever we can, and "ooh" at the patterns, and "ahh" at the fabric, and leave with a larger bag of things than we ever intended to.