The other week I was struck with a sudden spurt of enthusiasm for handicraft-type stuff, and I decided I should make myself a bag. I need a new handbag—the strap on the last one got worn through by a slightly-rusted metal loop—and making one would be fun and an ideal way to have something a bit different. It surely can’t be that hard to knock up a basic shopping-bag style thing, out of some decent thickness canvas or hessian or something, which i can sling over my shoulder. To decorate it, I decided I would get The Mother to hunt out some of my old swimming badges (the oval-pointy shaped ones) and sew them on, a vertical line on either side.
I knew this would be a good idea when, a couple of days after I thought of it, I saw a girl with swimming badges sewed onto the seat of her trousers. I mean, nowadays, two people can be a fashion movement. So, I phoned The Mother and asked her to find them, if she hadn’t chucked them out.
“Why do you want them?” she asked.
“To sew them on things, of course. What else are they for?”
“I’ll send them to you,” she said, “if you tell me the address of your website.”
So, it looks like the handbag might be off the menu for a while. I really don’t want The Mother coming here and lookin round every page on the website. And I know that if she did find it, she would look round every page and read every bit of information. I know she would. I don’t want her knowing that much about me.
Keyword noise: crafting, The Mother.
June has come in, and everything is full of drizzle, still. Typical. I forgot to say “White rabbits!” until mid-morning, too.
This site probably isn’t too useful to you unless you live in Oregon or want to make a skirt out of an old pair of trousers, but I just love the picture on the home page. I wish I could draw like that.
I’m tempted to try the trousers-into-skirt thing too, although it would take ages cos I don’t have a sewing machine. I have several pairs of trousers which have developed holes in Unfortunate Places, which could do with a new lease of life. Reading the intructions, I realised that lots of skirts in the shops over the past year or so are deliberately designed to look like they have been hacked out of an old pair of trousers. Did anyone else spot this earlier, or was it just me that was in the dark?
Another fashion item that I’ve spotted in the shops recently that’s been bugging me a little is Scholl sandals. Why are these suddenly all over the place? The Mother had a pair of these, identical to the ones in all the fashion stores right now, twenty years ago. Of course, they can’t have been fashionable in 1982, because The Mother was wearing them. So why are they so popular now?
Of course, heavily-promoted and popular aren’t quite the same thing. I should look at people’s feet more. Maybe. It’s a shame The Mother’s feet are so much smaller than mine, because she probably still has hers at the back of a cupboard somewhere.
Incidentally—on the subject of The Mother’s feet—when I was born, I’m told that the first thing my dad said was something like “deformed fingers and toes just like yours!” Now there’s romance. And they’re only slightly bent.
Update, 2nd May 2022: The site this post linked to is no longer online, and I have no idea if it’s been moved elsewhere, but I thought it worth keeping the post here because I did eventually follow the instructions and use it to make myself a skirt. I still have the skirt, even, although it doesn’t fit me any more. The site was by a woman called Andrea who was a member of one of the same mailing lists as me, and it really did have lovely illustrations. And, as an aside, when I originally wrote this I didn’t know quite how messed up my parents’ relationship actually was.
Keyword noise: The Mother, clothing, Scholl, shoes, crafting.
Home