My Hand-Crafting Past

Back in the day when I was more impoverished and desperate, when $1.50 represented a whole day of sitting in coffeehouse to avail myself of their delightful modern conveniences, such as a dry, environmentally regulated space and indoor plumbing, I thought nothing of spending long hours making things with my hands. This was a kind of Golden Age of craft and creativity for me, because all I really had was time, and a dogged perseverance that was often mistaken for patience.

At one point I was in Philadelphia, experiencing a full four seasons for the first time in my life. I'm Northern Californian, which means I'm somewhat akin to a duck. My home town gets more rain a year than Seattle, and it never really gets too cold, or too hot. The East Coast was a completely different animal, and adrift as I was out there, and practically penniless, I started taking measures.

I found some red corduroy in a Free Box at a local community center and lined a heavy gray wool cardigan with it. I had never done this before, and I quickly discovered why linings in coats and such are generally silky - every time I put the sweater on, whatever shirt or sweater I was wearing would cling to the corduroy and get bunched up horribly. I had to fight with it every time - even when I was taking it off. But it did cut the wind a bit.

The house I was living in had inadequate heat. (We even had one of our radiators explode!) I got an old wool Army blanket  from the Free Box (that Free Box certainly was a friend of mine!), and since it was unreasonably itchy, I made it into a quilt. I simply grabbed all the clothing I could  from the Free Box that I thought might suit, cut them into pieces, and sewed them into the blanket.

 

This is my favorite side of the quilt. The blue patches are a rayon dress; the orange is an old '70's style clown suit; the light blue is yet another dress. The burgundy patches are bits of broadcloth polyester fabric, and the remaining pieces are from a hippy-ish patchwork overall.

The less favored side. There is still plenty of clown suit and blue rayon dress, but I also added a Superman sheet of questionable thread count, an orange Hawaiian shirt, the leftovers from the light blue flowery dress, a cotton shirt with clouds, and some random bits of stray fabric (plaid). I still have this quilt - it's about to go up on my wall. I actually had a quilt commissioned because of this beast. I probably made about $.05 and hour, but back then that was good money.

When summer rolled around, with it's foreign humidity, I thought I was going to have a heat stroke. I became very put-out that public nudity wasn't legal. I once again raided the Free Box and came up with some lightweight material that I then hand-sewed into summer dresses.

The first dress was originally a batik skirt. The fabric was very gauzy, and dyed a navy blue and white pattern. I removed the waistband and trimmed it down to make a halter-top dress, making the straps from the waste fabric. It didn't know how to deal with the excess fabric at the back where I had another tie, so I just let it be.

The second dress was a pale, greenish aqua sheet in it's first incarnation. As such, it had very little stretch, and was possibly a polyester blend. I made another halter dress out of this, but since I was a bit more experienced, I added hook-and-eye closures in the back. Where I went wrong with this dress was in the ease; there wasn't enough of it! It was tight. I should have cut on the bias or something.

After that, winter rolled around again and I discovered knitting. I went into knitting the same way I entered into hand sewing - almost completely ad hoc. I got a book on traditional Fair Isle knitting from the library, bought some shish kabobs, sanded them into double pointed needles, varnished them, and grabbed an old burgundy acrylic sweater from the Free Box and unraveled it. I was going to make socks. And I did. I wish I still had them - they wore out several years ago - because I don't recall having a knitting pattern for socks. I only knew how to decrease, increase, cast on and cast off, so I was making it all up as I went. But the socks were wearable. (I came across a hat I knit the person I was seeing at the time from an old black cotton cardigan, and blew my own mind. Apparently I was working at a very small gauge and had a very interesting approach to shaping.)

So you see, I am not completely unfamiliar with taking what most people might consider extremes to accomplish crafting goals. This exploration of hand making clothing should be an adventure, and I hope you enjoy the ride!

This Modern Life

It’s a rainy autumn afternoon and at the office meeting it has just been announced that because of the recent slow-down in jobs, the office will be technically closed on Fridays to allay costs. This is happening so that the company may remain in the black without laying anyone off. Being the most recent hire, and near the bottom of the design totem pole, I know I’d most likely be the one they let go if it came down to it – unless, of course, they decide they don’t need a receptionist. I already fill in for her, since her job is much simpler than mine.

I spend upwards of ten hours a day on the computer. In good old days, this time would have been spent over a Mayline, and at the end of the day I would have been complaining of graphite on my sleeves and back aches rather than carpel tunnel and eye fatigue. There are people in this firm still who are more comfortable with a computer-free past, which is why they need me. I translate their scribbles into the modern context.

I am very keen on context. Once upon a time when I was filling in an application at a community college I thought that context was architecture. I am artistic by nature, yet technical; the arrangement of space and how things are made fascinates me, but not to the point that I wanted to be an inventor or engineer. That seemed too dry, too mundane. I needed romance. Making larger than life art that serves a function, and has to work  – firmitas, utilitas, venustas - now that seemed the place to be!  

Then I got a job in the industry and learned that in practice, even the most intense design charette with the most steely-eyed, cynical critic will not prepare you for the mind-numbing level of paperwork and technical fussing that actually comprises the lower levels of the architecture profession. I am in the wrong field.

It took me years to hone down my interests into something I could reasonably compartmentalize: the history of technology. But even that is inadequate.

I read books on the evolution of the flushable toilet. I want to know how public sanitation works, in detail, and why, and what it was like before. But I have no desire to be a sanitation engineer.

I research the forms of houses, why we order the rooms the way we do, and what sociotechnical innovations changed these things, and what stayed the same. But I don’t want to be an architectural historian.

I ask questions like, “Why do we use sheets?” and find that it is similar to the question, “Why do we wear underwear?” (A: to keep something more precious than the cheaper sheet/underwear fabric clean.) 

The Why of things runs neck-and-neck with the How to me; I need a reason as well as a method, and I want to see it in practice. I want to truly understand and experience it.

Lately I have been considering some very fundamental aspects of modern life as I know it. My interest in the past and my desire to experience something other than the mundane world has driven me back into the arms of the Society for Creative Anachronism. What began as a simple mission to assemble a seemingly appropriate Medieval outfit has transformed into an exploration of historical sewing processes, dying, and plausible reasoning behind fashion trends. I am enamored.

So what does this all have to do with the aforementioned office meeting, and the potential for my impending unemployment?

All I could think about while my future dangled on this precipice was what it would be like if I had to sew all my clothes by hand. It would completely transform the way I interact with my clothes, and my life, I suspect. Change is obviously in the air, so why not make it a radical change? 

The Exploration Challenge

I want to delve as deeply into the history and practice of clothing production before the advent of the sewing machine and synthetic dyes as I can. The best way I can imagine to do this is to live it.

So here is my proposal:

• I will purge my closet of non-essential clothing items. I only wear a fraction of what is in my closet, so this shouldn’t be too severe of a hardship.
•  I will replace the items I am keeping within six months with hand-made items. They can be knit, crocheted, or hand sewn. They will not be synthetically dyed, but they may be machine-loomed or spun because of budget limitations.
•  I will continue to augment and improve upon the hand-made wardrobe and see how far I can push it. (Will I make shoes? Coats? Underwear?) I will do this for a year… unless I become addicted, or natural disaster strikes.
• And I will blog it.