My Inspiration to Sew Part 2

My mother started sewing by hand as a little girl. She dreamed of sewing dresses like the ones she saw in the American dress magazines, but there was still rationings on fabric after the war.

At age 14, as was common back then, she left school and became an apprentice at a local sewing factory in England. She learned to properly sew there and over the years, came to know how to make raincoats, blouses, skirts, dresses, anything. If there was a new pattern, they only needed to hand it to her and she could sew it together while many others struggled. The others were only used to sewing the same part over and over, but my mother could work the whole garment. She was speedy too. You had to be if you worked piecework (you’re paid by the piece).
Growing up in grey Britain after the war, my mother dreamed of heading to Hollywood to design costumes for the stars. She saved and saved for the boat passage from England to Toronto and headed there. She quickly found a tailoring job and set about saving once again.
My parents met at a dance, got married and when one of the women at the tailor shop where she worked told her about where to go to get immigration papers for America, my mother went and within a few short weeks, she and my father were loading everything they owned into a Volkswagen mini bus and heading to Hollywood.

They drove from morning until night. In Britain, they would have crossed the country in that amount of time. In America with the old roads, they were in Michigan. The car broke down and they have lived there ever since.

Again my mother quickly got a job in the best tailor shop in Detroit. She made men’s suits until the shop was robbed and she was held at gun point. She never returned to work for many years. I was born and she directed her energies and her love into making all of my clothes (many of which were Princess Diana recreations), reupholstered our chairs/sofas, made curtains, bicycle bags, quilt, and hold-alls for small engine airplanes.

My mothers dresses did end up in Hollywood and the Cannes film festival just not as expected. I wore them to a job interview I once had (came to London instead) and to a number of film premieres.

My Sewing Inspiration

Who inspired you to sew? Someone asked me the other day. My inspiration, like many others, was my mother, but my mother is like no other. What makes her so special is her determination, patience, creativity, generosity, and I have never met anyone who can sew like her.

Growing up during World War II in England, my mother’s house was bombed on Christmas Eve. Luckily, she, her mother, and brother were in the Anderson shelter so all survived, but a few days later, she and her brother were evacuated into the country.

Their new home was dreadful. A mean lady took them in for the money. My mother was forced to look after the old lady and a houseful of dogs and cats. The few toys they had were confiscated and food was severely rationed. Any extra money my grandmother sent for food, my mother and her brother never saw.
When the lady died, my mother and her brother finally found relief and went to live in Lancaster Castle with a bunch of other children, some nuns, and prisoners.

You see, Lancaster Castle also operated as a prison. In fact, back in 1899, only 30+ years before, children had also been imprisoned here with adults, but to my mother and her brother, life suddenly opened up to them and the world never seemed so exciting.

They had almost nothing, but my mother and her brother would escape into a fantasy world by creating art with everything and anything at hand. They painted with berries and dead caterpillars and fashioned murals out of shrapnel. My mother even once found an old yellow raincoat and discovered when you cut it and placed it right sides together, it stuck together. She made doll’s clothes for dolls she didn’t even own. Who knew this was the beginning of her sewing career?

Tomorrow – Read about Coming to America – my mother’s journey to Hollywood to design costumes for the stars.

p.s. - Who was your sewing inspiration?

Rosie Cupcakes

Okay so I was on a roll making cupcakes. Here's another one I decorated with roses. You'll be seeing a lot of ways to decorate cupcakes in the next week or so because I'm visiting my parents and I've had to store a bunch of photos on my blog because I can't upload photos on their computer. I am so happy to be home. No matter how many years away or how nice I make my flat, there's nothing like our living room in front of the big screen TV, my sheepy blanket from when I was 8, and a large bowl of buttery sweet popcorn.

One of my favourite things to do is sew with my mom. Instead of having a sewing room, we have a sewing basement. There's boxes of fabric (we could probably become a supplier to Joann fabrics), buttons, ribbon boxes, and three sewing machines. Everything we need. I've been so looking forward to my mother teaching me how to make some more advanced projects and have brought home the lingerie pattern I bought the other week, (See further down my blog for my botched adventures in knicker making) silks, and a huge list of to dos. When I'm back on my normal computer, I'll be able to post the photos. With my mom by my side, hopefully, I'll avoid burning holes through silk, cutting three of the same left side of a pattern, sewing the seams wrong side out, etc.

No matter where I've travelled to in the past (Paris, Brugge, or Venice), there's no place like home - sewing with my mom in the basement.

What crafts do you make with you mom?