MARCH 19, 2020
I played under my mother’s kitchen table with the fabric scraps left over from the pieces she sewed, aprons and baby clothes to donate for the church bazaar in Halifax. With three small children under the age six, she didn’t sew for her children; she took us to a dressmaker for bespoke and very British dresses with smocking stitch bodices.
Later she sewed my dance costumes on her Singer sewing machine when we lived in Key West in the 1960s. My knowledge of fabric names (chiffon, satin, fisheye sequins, tulle,) expanded beyond cotton broadcloth that was typically used for my smocked dresses. At summer camp my first sewing project was a Chicken shaped needle-storage-case. I think there was lot of help in making it because it was an advanced project for a six-year-old child that included rick rack braid sewn within a seam. I might have been able to sew on the buttons for eyes or slip stitch the final seam. Never the less, I took pride in my accomplishment and the root was planted.
A few years later, our house in Ottawa had a nook in the kitchen that was big enough for the sewing machine to be set up to sew whenever there were a few moments to spare. Mother continued to sew for home décor and special occasion clothing for herself. There wasn’t as much time for her to sew for her two daughters. I remember a wool plaid coat with fringe for me (a pre-Ralph Lauren country look) and Bouclé spring coats made for Easter. Pink for my younger sister and aqua for me.
I sewed most of my clothing as a teenager. Early on Saturday mornings while my family was still sleeping I would go to the living room and cut out a sewing project using the floor (protected with a pattern cutting-board) for a work area. I entered a tailored, fuchsia wool-suit in a Singer Sewing Contest. I won the prize, a turntable. I listened to Sonny and Cher in my bedroom!
I wanted to be a fashion designer. I read all the teen fashion-magazines and filled my sketchbooks with my illustrations and glued clothing details torn from magazines beside notations about what I liked about them. I did this because I loved doing it. The books became important because they demonstrated my early engagement with design and were a key component of my portfolio when I applied and was accepted to Fashion Design College.
Janice wearing chiffon and sequin ballet costume Key West Florida
Needle case, cotton fancy weave, Rick Rack trim, buttons, 14 cm high x 12 cm wide, thread and Bohin needles
A note about the photographs: Where you see exclusively black and white images, it isn’t because colour prints weren’t available; it is because part of my fashion studies included photography. Not only were the garments designed and patterns drafted, from either sketches or draping on the Judy; the students sewed them on industrial machines. We studied photography, that included photographing our work in the photography studio and darkroom work where we developed and printed our images so as to create a portfolio. Most of the models were friends and students in the program.