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Nowadays I have no need for sewing (all of the pants and jeans I wear are available in petite sizes so I no longer have to 'adjust' or hem any of them) now that my children are adults.
When they were young I made their Halloween costumes, made repairs, and hemmed clothing when necessary.
I miss it but...I just don't have a need for it anymore other than minor repairs and replacing buttons.My mother grew up on a farm and that was her 'job' to make 'something out of nothing' as well as all clothing repairs. She was 7 years old and self taught when she began making clothes for her doll so by the time she was an adult she really was quite the expert at anything she wanted to make. She was the best and my teacher as well and I am forever grateful that she passed it along to me.
I have all of the quilts she made and they're just beautiful.
My mom was a dressmaker and she taught me when I was a little girl how to sew by hand, how to do very fine hand stitching to make or repair seams, repair tears or fraying, do hems, sew buttons, do invisible mending or darning on knitted items, etc. and I still do those things when necessary. One of my kids is in his 50's, he's a bachelor and he still can't handle a needle with any good dexterity so I occasionally hem or do repairs for him too. Fortunately he's easy going on his clothes.
But I can't operate a sewing machine even if my life depended on it. I've tried and my mom hounded me for years trying to teach me to get it right but I always ended up destroying the fabrics or breaking something vital on her sewing machines and we both finally gave up in despair.
Not good at it, don’t own a machine or know how to use one, happy to pay an expert and spend my free time doing/learning other things that do interest me. Luckily for me, the petite length pants are about right so I don’t have to have everything hemmed.
I hand sew buttons and minor tears. I also choose clothes that don’t require ironing. Life is short.
For buttons I have a Buttoneer. Once I took it on vacation and the airline security young lady wanted to know what it was as it has the two sharp prongs. I explained it and she was quite fascinated. I could see she was considering confiscating it as a ‘dangerous ‘ item, but I got the distinct impression that she really wanted it for herself! LOL
I learned to sew back in the day when girls were not allowed to take "shop". They had to take Home Economics. I learned to sew and it came in handy, never learned to cook other than to make toast and "set" a table.
Over the years, "shop" would have been much more useful.
I'm 5 feet tall, just barely, and have been hemming since before I could sew at all. Some awful jobs I did, and one time in desperation I stapled up a pair of pants for an interview. I didn't get the job.
No one taught sewing while I was in school, so it's ironic that I have packets of good needles that my neighbor rescued from the school she worked at when they discontinued "home ec." I hem everything I buy since most petites are too long, mend all kinds of things, replace zippers, and make the most durable potholders on earth out of old jeans.
I definitely wish I had a sewing friend so we could help each other fit and mark things, but I don't. I think I wish I had a dress form to put clothes on, but I have a feeling seeing my shape in the abstract wouldn't make me happy.
I think you should have gotten the job because you stapled your hems. That's thinking on your feet. You got the job done. You were too good for them.
You replace zippers?! I hate zippers and could never put one in right on the first try.
I used to have a floor stand hem chalk marker. It was better than nothing, but didn't replace a human being.
I'm completely spoiled. My First Holy Communion dress was made by a senior Italian woman. She probably could have made a party dress from rags. She may have because she emigrated from Italy in the late '40s.
why shouldnt new clothes be altered right off the bat? unless it is tailored new, it would be off the shelf made to a generic size, it isnt tailored/fitted to any one person but to millions of body sizes/shape
learning to hem means you can buy a longer pants where the rest fit better. a quick cut/sewing can fix it being too long
taking it in, i suppose isnt hard, turn it inside out and start sewing "in" then cut away extra fabric, flipped back around and its done.
sewing along seams is good too, clothes now sew so close to edge that they rip, so you can repair or reinforce it yourself
i still cant sew in a straight line but... no one else will know about that
to measure size, i find a pants that was already fitted to me, lay it on iron board and put new pants over it and take the size from fitted pants
for initial pants, if no one measured for me, i use a tape measure and stand on it to keep it to floor, then i stand up and measure to hip and remove 3-4 inches from length to account for distance to ankle from ground since i dont want to be dragging on the floor
It hasn't got a thing with not knowing how. I have a sewing room... 3 machines and a serger. I make clothes. I'd rather make them than alter them. And, I try on enough clothes until I find ones that fit and buy them. Generally in the 60 yrs I've been alive I can find clothes that fit so unless I have a very particular need for a specific type of clothing for something, I prefer to buy clothes that fit and not need altering immediately....that's why. Just like when I buy a new home in about 10 months, I don't want one that needs work.
If you want to purchase clothing that needs altering.. more power to you. I don't.
I do my own but I do hate buying something new that has to be altered right off the bat.
That doesn't seem to make sense to me. If it has to be altered at all, why would it not be immediate?
I'd never buy a suit or a dress shirt without alteration.
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