Alterations

I tend to be very reluctant to sew for other people.  This is not because I wouldn’t like to make them things, but more because I don’t want to deal with their expectations, and the pressure to make something they want on their schedule.  Selfish I know.   And yet, as life becomes more structured,  rushed and complex, my needs from my sewing become more relaxed and less structured.

I started sewing because I needed clothes and I realized that I could make exactly what I wanted for less money than I could buy it, if I could find it all.   Then I fell in love with the process.  I also fell in love with having the styles I wanted fit the way I wanted.  Along the way my standards got higher and I became less willing to accept what I find available.  I think I can just sew my own.

Still, it doesn’t always work out that way.  Most of the reasons I sew, and most of the things I make are not made for practical reasons, even though the resulting garments are indeed practical:  they fit me, they fit my lifestyle, they get worn.  I tend to sew what I feel like sewing at the moment.  Perhaps I fall in love with a piece of fabric.  I imagine a specific garment.  The garment I am dreaming of or working on may not be for the current season.  The garment I want to sew may not be practical in that it may not be what I could use the most at the time I am sewing it.  I an live with this.  It took me years to learn that I sew more when I allow myself the freedom to sew what inspires me and not chain myself to a schedule.  In the sewing room I chafe at schedules..

The world is too full of practicalities, of things that must be done.  There are too many demands and expectations, too much complexity, too many distractions.  Sewing time is dream time, play time, creative time.  This is a large part of why I don’t really sew much for others – I don’t want their expectations and schedules running my sewing time.  It is also why I have avoided doing a SWAP, even though I think a SWAP would be a good and useful thing and I would even like to do one.  I have pulled out fabrics, but then I pause.  It just seems to regimented, too practical, too much what I don’t want to do with my sewing time.  Still I admire people who actually sew SWAPS. 

But sewing is also a skill, a skill with very practical applications.   Although I am constantly amazed at people who are proud of their lack of sewing skills, “I couldn’t even sew on a button” they might say, and I am saddened by this, I also sometimes envy them that very lack of skill. If you can’t sew you don’t feel the need to mend things, and I hate mending.  I would rather make something new than mend something.   I find countless excuses to avoid mending, although I will admit that I mend family members clothing before I mend my own.  Whenever they complain at how long X has been put off, I can happily find some garment of my own that has been waiting on the mending pile far longer than anything they have offered up.

Another practical application of sewing skills is the ability to do alterations.  I do not alter anyone’s clothes but my own.  I am totally selfish about this.  I actually don’t object to alterations as much as to mending, don’t ask me why.  I do put it off – the worst part of alterations is the deconstruction portion, the part where you take things apart so you can fix them, make them bigger or smaller, shorter or longer.  Ripping is not inspiring.  You have to formulate a plan of attack: what needs to be accomplished, what needs to be ripped to achieve this ends, how long will the process take.  Once the seams are open and everything is ready for reassembly, the fun begins.  I have learned a lot from alterations, partially by learning how things are put together when I have to disassemble them, and also by figuring out how to get them to fit the way I want.  It is probably a backwards approach to fitting and construction, but it has worked for me.

A lot of the sewing time I have not been blogging about has been time spent on alterations.  There have been lots of alterations this year. 

First I lost some weight and had to take some things up so I would have spring clothes.  Yes, there was that mad euphoric period when I thought I would just sew a whole new wardrobe, but then weather and lack of time intervened and a few well placed alterations helped make the transition so much easier.

Then I gained volume (although not weight) and had to de-alter, or let out.  In fact it for a while it seemed like I was on an alteration see saw, as what I needed would vary on very short notice, in, out, in, out, periods where each day may be different than the day before.  One wonders why one even bothers.  A burlap sack would have done.  The architecturally unsound life can be an interesting one at times.

And then the volume disappeared.  Poof.  The jeans that were snug on Tuesday were falling off my hips on Saturday in Knoxville.  My carry-on bag did not have a wealth of alternatives.    A borrowed belt got me through the weekend.  Upon my return home I saw that another round of alterations awaited.  Loose is one thing, saggy and baggy must be corrected.

Luckily the volume issue has been one that has raised its ugly head occasionally the last few years and most of my clothes have been simple and easily altered.  Even that particular pair of jeans was easy to alter, at least as easy as jeans could be:   The waistband had side seams and a center back seam, simplifying the alteration process considerably. 

Perhaps I will even feel confident enough of issues of space and volume to make more complicated clothes again.  The new Vogues are out and there are some patterns calling my name, aside from the many things I have been saving up to make over the past year or two. 

I have one more pair of pants to alter – a once favorite pair of dark brown linen pants.  They are a bit more complicated in that they have lovely side seam pockets, shaped and beautifully top-stitched.  The pants are so loose through the hips and upper thighs as to resemble jodhpurs more than regular pants.  I am inclined to think that, in order to preserve the pocket, I will have to totally dismantle the pants and recut the tops. Luckily they have a front zipper so I don’t have to do anything with that.  Is it worth it?  Or should I just buy brown linen and recreate them?  Well, it can’t hurt to take them apart and give it a shot.