HOME DRESSMAKING

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 114, 29 August 1941, Page 45

HOME DRESSMAKING

the early morning you may see a woman (or perhaps several) collecting the strands of wool left by the sheep on barbed wire fences. She takes it home, cards and spins it by her own hearth, dyes it with one of the lichens grown on her own doorstep, and from it contrives garments for herself and her children. Her hands alone have wrought the change from raw material to finished product. We pampered city-dwellers, however, even if given a length of material, a packet of pins, a pattern, and an electric sewing-machine, are all too often incapable of producing a wearable garment. We prefer rather to eschew the fabric department and make straight for the Mantle Showroom. ty you drive out to the country in There is some excuse for this attitude. It is obvious to the intelligent that those people who cater supposedly for the Home Dressmaker are blatantly in league with the manufacturers wf readymade clothes. They do all they can to deceive her as to the probable result of her efforts, so that at the end of three days’ toil in the sewing room she will exclaim, " For Heaven’s sake don’t ever let me make another frock!" Fashion Plate Wamen © This is particularly true in the case of patterns. In the first place, figures in fashion books are emaciated and lengthened to the point of anatomical absurdity. This means that your frock can never look quite the same on your all-too-human figure as it does on the super-woman of the fashion plate. Secondly, there’ is an unnecessary duplication of pattern pieces. You may see a delightfully simple style with a Peter Pan collar. You take the pattern envelope home and find you have been given Collar Back, Collar Front, Collar Back Facing, Collar Front Facing, Collar Interlining. Your morale is finally undermined when you find you have been given a pattern for Bias Binding. Then there is the sheet of directions. This is usually couched in highly technical language, calculated to deceive the amateur seamstress#-terms such as nap, pile, basting and lapping which, when applied to dressmaking, apparently bear no relation to their everyday connotation. They even instruct you to do things like matching corresponding notches. A friend of mine recently spent a whole morning trying every shop in town in an endeavour to match her notches, but she couldn’t get the same size anywhere. Designing, Cutting, Laying-out If you feel, however, that you have sufficient strength of character to overcome the many obstacles placed in your path there is no reason, of course, why you should not become a very successful Home Dressmaker. The first step is Designing your Wardrobe. In most cases this is best left to a competent cabinetmaker. Cutting Out.-There is a popular fallacy to the effect that you should cut your coat to fit your cloth. This is‘misleading. You should always cut your garment to fit yourself, irrespective of the size of your cloth.

For cutting out, either a large table cr the floor may be used. The usual custom is to place the pattern pieces on the material and keep them there by using the drawing room bric-a-brac. You then steer the scissors in and out of the clusters of pottery. If the bric-a-brac is valuable the floor is to be preferred. If you are using a commercial pattern you will find various diagrams for layingout the material. This rather grisly term may be regarded as prophetic of the probable short life of the garment, which after one wearing will probably be relegated to the parish Jumble Sale. One particular lay-out will be given for material which has no up and down. Disregard this completely, as any amateur

dressmaker will tell you that «Il fabrics positively undulate at the approach of scissors. Making Up Though only twenty years ago fierce controversies raged on the subject of making up, most people to-day agree that it is to be encouraged and it is for the individual woman to decide whether she will go ahead or not. Pin your cut-out garment together and try it on. Then you can decide whether it is worth-while making it up. In making up the garment the important rule is " Be Thorough." Do not be lulled into false security by advice such as "A Stitch in Time Saves Nine," but remember that nine slow stitches in place of one hasty one are more likely to save subsequent embarrassment. Choosing Your Fabric.-If you are like me, a person who grows in beauty size by size, you will perhaps be told that there are certain principles governing your choice of materials. These principles, however, will not stand close inspection. : You are urged, for example, to avoid large patterns. This is. obviously unsound. If you buy a Size 14 when you take a Size 20, you are giving yourself a lot of unnecessary trouble. If you buy a striped material you are told to avoid having the stripes going round, as this adds to the width. An-

other absurdity. I would go further and add that it you are inclined to embonpoint it is important to have the stripes going right round. Otherwise you are laying yourself open to a charge of unsightly gapesis. Finishing Off.-This, unlike Making Up, should be done quickly, before the garment gets a chance to do the same to you. -If, after reading these few remarks on the art of Home Dressmaking, you are inspired to make your own clothes, you will probably realise the aptness of the title. The products of the Home Dressmaker can verv seldom be worn except

in the privacy of the home.

M.

B.