I have been given the wonderful gift of a ticket to visit friends on the east coast in August (they all pitched in for it - like a rent party!) - I am delighted, except that I realised I have no clothes for Virginia in the summer. Now, it is long enough away that I could make some things, but as 'we is pore' and I otherwise have no need of dresses to survive Virginia in August, I decided I would remake some old dresses of my daughter's.
Yes, you read that right - hand-me-downs from my daughter. When she was ten, no less! She is now eighteen. She outgrew two calico shifts I made for her (princess cut, short sleeves) rather quickly. I put them by, and use one of them for a nightgown in extremis, when all else is in the wash. But I swim in them. At age ten my darling girl was half a head taller than me and about a size larger. So, I decided to cut these at about the 1830s waist level, slightly raised, refit the bodices, and sew them back together. Voila! ankle length cotton dresses to live down on the farm in Albemarle for a week.
As I was picking the bodices apart, I thought of the old custom of remaking and turning clothes. Also of what a wasteful society we live in. How many times have I seen genuinely old clothes - Elizabeth, Jacobean, Georgian, Victorian - that have been recut, remade, turned and retrimmed until they are unwearable - then saved because they are old. Fabric used to be much more expensive than it is now (and good stuffs are not cheap now, either), and people did not waste it. If the clothes could no longer be made useful for a child or baby, they were cut up to put into a quilt. There are famous stories during the American Civil War of 'twice turned dresses' in the beleaguerd South (I make no bones that my sympathies lie in Virginia), and during the Second World War on both sides of the pond remaking things was the manner of the day, with clothing rationing and new fabric unobtainable.
There is something very pleasant about getting something new out of something old, apart from the thrill of thrift. It is as much a gift as that magical plane ticket sent to me by my friends.
Here's to old ways and old days.
2 comments:
Oh how I agree with your sentiment about 'making-do and re-purposing'. Many times have turned the collars of my husbands shirts so that he can gain another year or so's use from them, even if only whilst gardening. Being a child of WW2 in England I know only too well the sacrifices my mother made to keep us all fed and clothed and today I am busy recycling plastic shopping bags into other useful items - including, ironically, more bags!
Thank you, didough! I find your story most inspiring. I have a very great deal of admiration for the British war generation and how those on the home front did their bit. Yes, they did it because they had to, but they did it with spirit, creativity, and raw courage.
Thank you for continuing that tradition.
Post a Comment