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So, I’m going to be 40 in a couple of weeks, and I’m not taking it well. Not at all. Drunkenly ranting at my husband about the lost opportunities of my youth and how he’s undoubtedly about to ditch me for a 19 year old arts student has been the source of some uneasiness in our house recently, so I thought it might be time for me to find a nice displacement activity to occupy my time.

Then I tried to find a dress to wear to my brother-in-law’s wedding and was reminded that ever since I decided that I would like to have clothes that fit properly and look OKish, shopping has become less fun than trying to wear a bikini made out of cats.

So, I have decided to take up dressmaking. Fits perfectly with me becoming an old nana in cardigans, you might think. Well, you’d be wrong and can fuck off. Dressmaking, it turns out, is not nearly as easy as you (OK, I) might think.

The first dress I made was from a very simple pattern my gorgeous sister in law (to be) helped me pick out. Armed with a good pair of scissors and an industrial strength unpicker (“you’ll need this”, she said sternly) and a brand new measuring tape, I bounded in the front door and set to measuring myself. My measurements matched up perfectly with the size 20 on pattern chart, so there was immediate shrieking, followed by downing tools and hurling myself straight back into bed. LovelyHusband came in to find out what the problem was and was met with ravaged accusatory stares. “Why didn’t you TELL me that I’m unbelievably huge? How COULD you let me get like this and not even realise that I’m about to DIE from fatness” I wailed. LovelyHusband backed slowly out of the room and sent the whippets in to deal with the situation. I lay there for a few hours explaining to the whippets that I have nothing at all against morbidly obese people, I just didn’t like the idea of becoming one of them and not even knowing about it. They listened gravely, and scratched themselves and licked their genitals.

Eventually I donned my dressing gown and trudged my large self back to the sewing room to stitch together my size 20 dress, and, joy of joys, it was MILES too big. Several hours of taking bits in resulted in an odd little boxy thing that would have fit perfectly at the top if I didn’t need to breathe in and if both my breasts were attached to my sternum, but it was all in a size 12, so I was perfectly happy.

It was about then that I realised dressmaking was not something I could just figure out in a weekend, so I booked myself into a sewing class. Sewing classes for beginners come in two varieties: Come For A Day And Learn How To Make A Crap Skirt or Come For A Few Days And Learn How To Make A Crap Skirt And Some Crap Pants. So I was thrilled when the people from the internet told me about a small class in town where you could just take your own project and have someone help you with it.

Brilliant! I booked myself in, bought a vintage 1940s dress pattern from ebay and spent weeks searching Melbourne for the most ludicrously expensive silk/linen blend material I could find.

I am nothing if not organised, so the day before the class I pulled out the pattern and played around with it and my new dressmakers dummy (stuffed so she is exactly my shape and re-covered in shiny polyester, Justin thinks she is lovely, but that’s a story for another time). Anyway, I fairly quickly realised that women in the 1940s didn’t have access to Tim Tams and gyms and were consequently a very different shape to modern women (me). So I spent the day asking the people from the internet how to resize a pattern and then happily following all their conflicting instructions and cutting out my material. Unfortunately I got waylaid by a well-meaning relative and a couple of bottles of champagne half way through, but that was fine because I knew I’d be able to get up extra early the next day and have everything finished in time to get to my 11am class.

A completely unexpected hangover descended on me like a ton of shit-encrusted bricks the next morning, but I (just) managed to get myself showered and the remainder of my cutting out done before stumbling off to sewing class.

The teacher was lovely and didn’t snicker, not even a little bit, when she told me:

• I’d resized the pattern wrong so all the bits wouldn’t fit together

• I hadn’t cut the material along the grain properly, so even if they would fit together, they’d hang all wonky

• It was the wrong kind of material for the dress so even if they fit together and I’d cut them properly, the dress would look weird

• I’d left a couple of the bits at home, so even if they fit together and I’d cut them properly and used the right material she couldn’t help me put it together because the middle bits were missing.

• When I started sewing it in class I’d sewn the skirt bits together upside down

She gently suggested that an 18 piece pattern that required extensive resizing and didn’t come with any instructions might be a little ambitious for someone who had never used a sewing machine before. Then she suggested something else, but I’m not sure what it was because my hangover suddenly started crushing my brain like a shit-encrusted waste compacter.

So I wandered off to have a look around the store, they had lots of lovely material that could be instantly whipped up into flattering outfits that would remove 10 years and 15 kilos as soon as I put them on. I also discovered some beautiful cotton I could turn into a voluminous nightgown for my sister in law. Voluminous nightgowns are the only things I have been able to make so far, and I am inflicting them upon my unwilling friends and family in the guise of gifts. So anyway, as I was poking around I pulled a dozen heavy rolls of fabric on top of a little old lady standing next to me. I shouted ‘fuck’ as helpfully as I could but she went huffing and puffing off to complain to the store management anyway.

I also found a lovely black silk/cotton blend that would be perfect for my next project. The people from the internet tell me that it’s terribly simple to make patterns from your own clothes, just a few bits of tracing paper and some pins are all that’s required. So I’m thinking that a blend of my two favourite dresses, but with lining and a different waist and a lace trim would be sure to look stunning.

I wonder if I can get it all ready in time to take to next months’ class?

 

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