Penny pinching through sewing

There are some things that I learned to do as a child because we were, in a word, poor! In addition, things were rationed as part of the WWII war effort when I was ages three to seven, making it prudent/necessary for us to "use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without". One of the things that I learned to do was to re-make clothing (usually to fit a different person, physically and to their liking) and/or to repair it. This became such an ingrained habit that, though I dislike sewing, I still do it. I was wandering down memory lane in this vein because of a comment string in which Bogie and I engaged on her blog about jeans, wearing jeans out, and the fashion that people have been following of buying pre-torn/shredded jeans at outrageous prices.

1940s

In this photo of me and my brothers from 1943, I am wearing a fetching creation made from sacks in which our flour had come. Although my mother did not sew (Dad's mom taught me how in about 1943-1946), she always found a woman who was clever with a needle to make my dresses and gym suits. Nearly all of my dresses were made from flour sack or feed sack materials until I entered 8th grade, at which time Mom bought me three store-bought dresses.

The above photo was taken at the time my parents bought their first home, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Behind us kids you can see our brand new home with a truck parked in the driveway. That was the truck in which Elder Brother (EB), our parents, and I had lived through the winter as Dad worked as an electrician in construction at various Army Air bases throughout Texas. Younger Brother (YB) was too young to travel with us and stayed with our maternal grandparents on their farm in southwestern Missouri. EB attended 1st grade in at least five schools in Texas before enrolling in a Tulsa school. But I digress.

In addition to wearing feed sack dresses, I took custody of EB's outgrown overalls - which I hated. 

One saving trick in which most of us females, young and old, indulged was adding a ruffle of (usually, cotton) lace to the bottoms of our skirts, making it appear that our petticoats were peaking from beneath our skirts. We got another year's wear from a dress or skirt, that way - more than one year for adult women.

I still use a pillowcase that the late Expert Seamstress made out of a flour sack for my mother, using fabric from Mom's collection, in 1993. I gave the rest of Mom's collection to a friend for use in quilts some years later.

1950s

I was fortunate that one of my mother's five aunts had a daughter a few years older than me. When we visited them in Arkansas in about 1951, the daughter gifted me with some of her outgrown dresses - and my first pair of heels (which gave me a corn that dogged me until I retired in 2004!) These hand-me-downs, I really liked and I felt so stylish when wearing them. Unfortunately, as far as I know, no photos of me were taken wearing any of those clothes.

During the 1950s, my own sewing spanned from making my own school clothes to making baby clothes for Dudette (born 1959). At one point, I used the same chiffon fabric three times in making myself "formal" gowns to wear to dances in 1955 (age 17), 1956 (nearly age 18), and 1958 (age 20). I have no photo of the original dress - a one-shouldered style that I made to wear to a dance at my old high school's winter dance when I was "home for the holidays" in 1955. I do remember that my date was still a junior in high school, but we had been friends for years and ours was a date of convenience. A few months later, I tore that dress apart and used left-over fabric to make a full-skirted, strapless dress for a college dance.

In the winter of 1958, I tore the above dress apart to make the final iteration for that fabric into a halter-style dress to wear to the Military Ball. I had talked dance-shy Hunky Husband into attending and had even made a trip to St Louis to pick up his Air Guard uniform. That was a ball to remember!

We lived in the downstairs apartment of a two-apartment "house" (that would, today, be condemned). It included zero insulation and water pipes that readily froze in winter temperatures. The morning of the dance, we arose to a temperature of 8 degrees Fahrenheit. We couldn't draw fresh water nor could we flush the commode. This at a time when I was still experiencing "morning sickness" during my pregnancy with Dudette. It was dreadful! 

I don't recall how in the world we managed to clean up for the dance; but, I suspect that we walked to the campus and used the facilities in the camera club's darkroom. The darkroom was in the basement with, and across the hall from, the amateur radio club's "shack". At best, I found no way of washing my hair. In the photos, taken in the "shack", one can see that I was not at my prime. Expert Seamstress had helped me do the beading on the midriff of the dress.

We had a great time at the dance. HH was so nervous that he burned a hole in my skirt with his cigarette. To follow up on that act, he promptly spilled his soda on the dress. In later years, we did a fair amount of dancing - but only when he was fortified with libation! (One exception HH made: He would dance with our daughters in our living room during their school days.) That dress found its final assignment as a dress (repaired, of course) worn by the daughter of our babysitter after we moved to Derby KS.

ADDITION of 11/8/2021 - A real seamstress

In her younger years, HH's sister Helen intended to become a fashion designer. She had the talents for it; but, life intervened. She became a professional chef and business owner instead of a fashion designer. At any rate, below are two of the ball gowns that Helen designed, made, and wore when she was 18 and 19.

Comments

[Ole Phat Stu]

Thankyou for teaching me a new word (libation), the context of which I failed to understand as my astronomically wrong fingers typed in libration from force of habit ;-)

[bogie]

As we discussed on my blog, I keep my clothes forever. I hate shopping, especially for jeans, since I am picky about how they fit and no two pairs fit the same. I also like thick fabric jeans as opposed to the usual thin fabric that seems to make up most clothing for females. Since I really don't care what I look like, I wear paint splattered and stained jeans until they give up the ghost. Working from home is a great boon to me since I don't have to buy slacks any more :)

I also have to be liberally libated in order to dance. Which was an issue when I was partnered since I was the designated driver. Oh, I'll chair dance (bop up and down or sway while sitting), but that is about it. I didn't go to school soc-hops or the prom, so I was spared even the expectation of dancing in school. I do remember dancing with Dad in the living room when I was young.

[Liz Hinds]

Wow! You are a very good seamstress. And those flour sacks are really pretty!

[Cop Car]

Stu--Of course your fingers thought "astronomy"; however, your brain knew that was out of context. Knowing your tee-totaling ways, I'm not surprised that "libation" was not in your daily vocabulary. ツ

Bogie--What can I say? Neither of your parental units likes to shop. (For clothing, at least. Tools or books? That's another issue.) In high school, I attended one soc-hop and three "formal" dances. Most of the dancing that I've done has been with your dad - at Jaycee events where libation was the order of the day. You and Dudette were so cute dancing with your dad.

Liz--How kind of you. I've never thought that I was a good seamstress, but serviceable. Sense of style? Not at all. In high school, I took Elder Brother with me to pick out a store-bought formal dress. (I'll add a photo of HH's sister who, in high school, designed and made her own ball gowns. She and Elder Brother's wife were expert seamstresses - and enjoyed it.)

[Joared]

Your sewing is much more elaborate and extensive than mine ever was. Mother was remarkable at remaking clothes and loved to sew, so I benefited from that when there was no money to buy new clothes.

I had a cousin, ten years older, who delighted in designing and sewing her clothes in high school. I learned in later years she had wanted to go to NYC and become a fashion designer. Her parents wouldn't hear of that, with her father insisting that she and her younger sister should study basic office or secretarial skills. She became very angry, WWII started, and she joined the WAVES. She never did get into fashion design as she wanted but in the years ahead delighted in creating dance costumes for her granddaughters and others.

[Cop Car]

What a sweet story about your cousin, Joared. Did she lament that she never became a pro designer or was she, like many of us, happy to "settle for" something else that came along?

After Mom died, in going through the voluminous amount of papers that she left, I found a sheet of paper with my father's handwriting on it. He had planned out the courses that I should take in high school. They were far from the courses that I did take, of course, since I wished to become a physics professor and he, true to his generation, thought that I should take basic home economics and office/secretarial studies. As far as I recall, Dad never shared his plan with me. Now, I sometimes wonder if he was disappointed that I had not followed his plan - which, BTW, rather well matched what his mother had actually followed. Dad never gave me any reason to believe that he was disappointed, and he loved studying my STEM text books.

[Joared]

My cousin’s relationship with her parents was forever altered. I think she always harbored resentment toward them and my aunt always complained she wasn't attentive to them enough. I didn't see her much though she did like my Mom who must have been sympathetic. I did see her in her seventies or so, mentioned how my Mom had told me of her dream and she seemed genuinely pleased to learn the rest of the family hadn't condemned her. After she left the Waves she worked in Hawaii on Oahu where they tracked for any possible tsunamis that might threaten the Islands, then lived in a house on the Big Island on a married daughters husband’s coffee plantation. She’s still living the last I knew on the mainland in Indiana with a younger daughter, would be almost 100 now. Long since she’s been unable and unwilling to communicate and her family doesn't. Her hearing is gone and cognitive issues, probably including memory, too.

[Cop Car]

It's too bad that we humans are inclined to hang onto our grudges. I hate that your cousin didn't get to fulfill her dream; but, I lament that she had such a hard time letting go of it. Her service in the WAVES, surely, would have given her some satisfaction and it seems that she's lived an interesting life. I particularly like that she got to make dance costumes for youngsters. It is well that you thought to mention your mother's sympathy toward her plight - confirming that she (your cousin) was not the only family member who understood her pain.