issenllo | (no subject)

Have been thinking about this post, and comments therein. My conclusion: either I'm a total lightweight and that there are some uber-sewing skills that I've never learnt and which apparently takes lots of time to master, or that I'm an arrogant jerk in thinking that simple (I emphasise simple) sewing skills isn't that hard to learn provided you are interested and have reasonable motor skills (and time and money for equipment and such).

I learnt to sew when I was in school for O levels. I started off with a gathered skirt (guh, really horrible but I did wear it at home - waste not and all that) and my final projects were a collared shirt and a child's dress. That child's dress was... my god the embroidery that went on it. It was a totally unrealistic dress for a kid to wear: it was long and white, with yards and yards of itchy fabric, aforesaid embroidery and a goddamn sailor's collar.

I cannot make skirts because I suck at making waistbands, so I make blouses and dresses. I mean, I'm not at all on the level of Pattern Magic, but I can make a simple lined dress that's ok for normal office wear and blouses or camisoles to wear with storebought trousers. I can't get over the idea that homemade clothing means (only) gathered skirts with drawstrings and apparently amateurish rectangles sewn together. It's not. Mind you, lack of commercial equipment does mean that buttonholes don't look as 'finished' and such but you can work around these things and I can put in a zip just fine...? You can make reasonably nice clothing even at home, always supposing you want to. Yes, they can look 'different', as in, not fast fashion, as in 'not like what everyone else is wearing'. But it doesn't mean they look bad or cheap or second-rate or unprofessional. It does help that I use reasonably nice, good quality fabrics. Nice fabrics do the heavy lifting in modern fashion.

(I've been forced to question whether I've been looking like a factory reject all these years or or whether my homemade clothing does stand up to some scrutiny. Hehe.)

***

Born from the Earth, Tony/Steve (eventual), Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics and AU, explicit sex, WIP, Iron Man and Avengers, by venusm. Please read author's notes and warnings.

Hm, I think this is my first A/B/O rec. Or not, maybe I've forgotten the previous instances. I do tend to be wary of them, entertaining as they (some of them, anyway) are. This one is pretty good.

Temeraire, Bond/Q, Skyfall, by professorfangirl (lizeckhart). And so is this.

Jagged Little Pill series, comprising also Scar Tissue, Good Riddance, and The Day the World Went Away, Bond/Q, Skyfall, by beederiffic

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I think there must be some cultural difference at play here. Certainly, in Korean culture, all traditional clothing has curves; it's part of the aesthetic. So the whole "rectangles" and straight seams thing doesn't make any sense to me.

Also, I think in Western countries, there's more of a generational gap in terms of how long ago sewing your own clothes was a common activity. For me, in my mother's generation, it was actually cheaper to make your own clothes/buy handmade clothes from the tailor than mass-produced factory garments. These were hand-sewn clothes too, not ones made on a sewing machine. The few dresses she kept are still quite beautiful, figure-flattering and with pleating. Plus, I think going to the tailor is still pretty common in a lot of Asian countries. But for a lot of people in the U.S., sewing hasn't been common outside home econ classes since their grandmother's (or sometimes even great-grandmother's) generation.

Yup. In my family, it never stopped; my mum, my grandma still make clothes. Hem handkerchiefs, make quilts, drapes, tablecloths. If you were poor, you took in sewing for other people. My aunt worked in a sweatshop-like factory. And people went to tailor stuff (though it was considered a bit of a luxury.)

in Korean culture, all traditional clothing has curves.

Chinese clothes too! Traditional and modern (eg, qipao/cheongsam). I guess the writer of that post has a bit of Japanophile thing going on, because there are other traditional clothes out there that definitely have curves.

Well, I go get what the poster means about the generation gap regarding sewing. Certainly I know of people who fall into despair because they bought a pair of dress pants that were too long while I get puzzled about why they don't simply cut and hem. Never mind the missing buttons.

Edited 2013-11-19 15:43 (UTC)

I've seen some really awesome homemade clothing on a girl who has awesomely eclectic taste. She never looked like a factory reject, just like someone who KNEW where to get clothes, so when she said she made her clothes I had a moment of epiphany--of course, where else would you get such awesome things?

For what it's worth, I never thought your clothes looked factory reject, and now I know why there was a je ne sais quois about them! ^_^

As for the Skyfall fic, I wish I hadn't clicked. That has irrevocably sold me on the 00Q pairing, and now I have to restrain myself from going out for more, more, more!

Hehe, nice of you to say so. My point exactly. If those homemade clothes looked bad, why would I wear them outdoors? It's way possible to make nice clothes at home, right?

I blame (well, not blame exactly) Ben Whishaw. Skyfall was such an illogical movie plotwise that one has to concentrate on the eyecandy. ^_^

ETA for stupid spellcheck changing Skyfall to Skywalk. WTF?

Edited 2013-11-19 15:49 (UTC)

My maternal grandmother knits very well -- I wear her work even now (as "retro" designs, granted). My paternal grandmother and mother both knit poorly and sew poorly. *g* In China a lot of clothes were handmade, of course, and my mother made some clothes for me up to my mid-teens because we weren't rich. So to answer one of your questions: it's entirely possible to be an adult who has had to sew clothes for their family for years and still be unable to turn out anything except amateurish assembled rectangles.** Just like it's possible to be an adult who had to cook for their family for years and still be a bad cook (I know many of those as well).

Practice is a big part of it, but to improve any skill you also have to want to get better, which (I suspect) implies an interest in the activity itself rather than just the result.

I'm about 500% more times interested in cooking than in sewing/knitting, so as an adult I've just decided not to do it. XD;;; I don't even darn socks or fix buttons that fell off. That part makes me feel like a terrible person, because I can in fact darn a sock or sew a button (even a buttonhole!), but if I decide I'm going to do it myself that just means I never get to wear the garment again, because I won't get around to it. Also, I never understood how to get the thread to run through a sewing machine, so there's that.

** That's my grandma. My mom can do a basic unlined A-line or H-line sundress. But office wear, or lined... forget it.

it's entirely possible to be an adult who has had to sew clothes for their family for years and still be unable to turn out anything except amateurish assembled rectangles.

You're right. I stand corrected. I do assume too much in saying that 'anyone can do it' when that's not exactly true. But it does mean that your grandma probably did not want to sew once she didn't have to, ie, once it's possible to buy them or have someone else sew them for you. That's probably where your point about interest in the activity comes in. I was assuming that anyone who actually wants to sew would be able to make something nice given sufficient investment in time, etc.

Plenty of cosplayers & reenactors would agree with you...

You can make reasonably nice clothing even at home, always supposing you want to. Yes, they can look 'different', as in, not fast fashion, as in 'not like what everyone else is wearing'. But it doesn't mean they look bad or cheap or second-rate or unprofessional.

I agree with this 100%. I'm pretty sure you never looked anything less than what you aimed to be. :)

I feel like there are some weird jumps in assumptions there…. If you plan it out well you can use your curved seam “leftovers” for something else – headbands, belts, quilting, patches, dolls dresses - and I've certainly bought cheap polyester and other modern fabrics on the cheap to take home.

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I think that having a family influence does help? My grandmother is about as mainstream Australian as you can get, but was a seamstress before she got married; she still does a lot of sewing, and her various grandchildren don't treat home sewing as some sort of strange and foreign beast - both of my cousins (male and female) do sewing at her place; one of my sister's does a lot of sewing via her reenactment group (and uh, has a little bit of an ongoing black market on rabbit pelts) and my other sister at the very least has sewing projects that she talks about periodically (that sound totally awesome and I would totally buy if I found available - a fur lined hoody with little cat ears!!! XD)

There's some sewing skills which are very complicated to do (like making a hoop skirt); but if you have the time, space and money for the intial investments (like a sewing machine that makes your life soo much easier) I don't think it's a overly difficult skill to learn.

I don't sew myself these days because it's not something I have the time, space, or to be honest patience for it at the moment.

But I've made my own clothing in the past when I couldn't find what I wanted, and it can be rewarding. Like a set of skirts when I was a.... teenager and found 1 skirt I liked and nothing else mainstream (all I wanted at the time was something shiny & below the knees!!! for the dance party things.) so I used that to make a pattern - and then I had four skirts that material wise combined were certainly much cheaper than the original (it was a $49 skirt)... and didn't look too different from the original apart from the uh, colouring choices (the original was silver, & I made a gold, a red, a lilac & a rainbow one. [again, teenager] :3)

Ooh yeah. I come across a lot of people sewing out of interest and the results look pretty good. So it's not like it takes a huge amount of time to learn to do. If you want to.

Yup, family influence helps a lot - if nothing else, there's someone to borrow a spare unpicker from! (I keep losing mine.). And to raid other people's store of zips and lace bits and buttons.

A lot of my sewing projects start off by seeing something in a store and copying it at home because who can afford to buy expensive clothes all the time? ^__^