Curly Locks, Curly Locks, will you be mine?
You shall not wash dishes, nor feed the swine,
But sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam,
And sup upon strawberries, sugar, and cream.
And thou shalt have fabric as fair as a dream,
The red of my veins, and the white of my love,
And the gold of my joy for the braiding thereof
~ James Whitcomb Riley
Remembering this poem as Pussycat, Pussycat from Richard Scarry's Best Mother Goose Ever, I used the snippet "sew a fine seam" to Google this nursery rhyme. This poem is really titled, Curly Locks, Curly Locks, and it's a fanciful rhyme of love.
"Fabric as fair as a dream," a phrase that starts me imagining a dress worthy of such fabric...a wedding dress.
Threads
From One Generation...
My mother sewed most of my clothes and all the important dresses in my life including my wedding gown. Most of my wedding photos were lost in a basement flood years ago. One of the few I have left, this photo, of our cake cutting, shows the general design - empire waist, long sleeves - and the lace fabric. |
| The wedding dress sewn for me by my mother. |
I loved my dress, and always appreciated the thought and time my mother put into making this special dress. It meant a lot to me that she made it.
Years later, when my own daughter became engaged, I was so happy when I asked her if she'd be interested in my using the fabric from my dress to make her rehearsal dinner dress, she said yes!
As you can see, I had plenty of fabric, so much in fact, that I didn't need to cut into the dress. Only the fabric from the train was used to make the rehearsal dinner dress.
It was important to me to make a dress for my daughter that she would feel beautiful wearing, that it be comfortable and fun...and include all the love, thought and care that my mother put into my dress.
...to the Next
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Wearing her rehearsal dinner dress made with
fabric from my wedding dress, my daughter and
her new grandfather-in-law show some fine
footwear!
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My daughter wanted a simple lined lace
dress. For comfort and today's closer fit,
the lining needed to stretch.
I had a few things to learn! It had been at
least 20 years since I'd done any sewing,
and in that time so much had changed:
now most fabrics stretch, either knits or
woven with spandex, and my old sewing
machine just couldn't handle stretch fabric.
Using the internet for research and YouTube for tutorials, I read all about Sergers, found a highly recommended basic model at a price I was comfortable paying, and taught myself how to use it. I LOVE MY SERGER!
I took my good ol' time to get the dress just right. My daughter kept saying she wanted it shorter and tighter. And I kept biting my tongue...short and tight...and I'm glad I did.
When she walked into her rehearsal dinner, I could tell she felt wonderful about how she looked. To compliment the grooms' Texas family, she wore boots. Next thing I knew, the groom's grandfather rolled up his pants legs and posed with my daughter for this photo.
Sewing this dress for her was ultimately a gift to myself. To have experienced this "thread" of love, from my mother and now me, and to see her so happy...I will carry this very special memory of this joy for the rest of my life.
And though my mother's health kept her from attending the wedding, her comments about the rehearsal dinner dress? It's too short, it's too tight. Mom, I wouldn't change a thing!
Going back a few more generations
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| Mom on her wedding day in 1945 |
1945: Mom's wedding dress
My mother wore one of her Women's Army Corps uniforms at her marriage in December 1945. After the war, she dyed the fabric a dark color and had several more years wear from it. She really liked her uniforms. She said even military women's hair could not touch their collar - she had frequent haircuts since her hair always grew fast.
1923: Grandma's wedding dress
The 1923 photo, below, of my grandmother's wedding still surprises me. I knew her when she was in her 60s and 70s and grandma didn't seem to care for stylish clothes. Yet, look at this photo. Her dress was a shorter length, and the style of her veil is definitely 1920s. Her shoes would have been in style at my 1971 wedding, with their short heel and square toe. I'd never have guessed they were made and worn in 1923. The men's clothing could still be worn today, of course, duh.
And all the flowers, although this particular photo doesn't show the abundance of flowers that were used for decoration. Today you'd see that quantity of flowers only at funerals!
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| My grandmother's wedding in 1923. |
Next Blog
Making a friends' wedding dress into her daughter's rehearsal dinner dress
(Way back, I'd promised to blog about making tamales. Then my mother passed away. With thoughts focused on life transitions, somehow the wedding dress project is upper most in my mind right now. So the plant-based tamales will be kept on the back burner for a few more blogs. Stay tuned, they're delicious!).
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| ...nor feed the swine? Good thing I'm a piggy! |
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