{"id":18195,"date":"2022-04-11T09:19:26","date_gmt":"2022-04-11T13:19:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/?p=18195"},"modified":"2024-08-29T13:40:17","modified_gmt":"2024-08-29T17:40:17","slug":"sewing-my-own-ballgown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/2022\/sewing-my-own-ballgown\/","title":{"rendered":"Sewing my own ballgown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Sewing my own ballgown\n <\/h1>\n \n \n <\/header>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

When I was a child, my mother made most of my clothes. She had learned to sew from her mother. Soon I was helping, stitching the seams on a new piece of clothing my mother was making. That’s how I learned to sew, and did so in earnest in my teens. This was the early 1950’s, and sewing my own clothes was more a necessity than a hobby, a very time consuming task. – First pattern books were scanned in the fabric store, and a pattern chosen, for me a difficult choice, since I had learned that not everything looked as good on me as on the models in the pattern books. Choosing the fabric was much easier since the store had a large selection of good fabrics, but I had to stay within my budget. – Now at home the job could begin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. The dining room table pulled out to it’s full length, the material spread out, the pattern pinned to it, and the layout carefully checked before the fabric was cut.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Next the pieces were pinned, then stitched together with basting thread.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. At the first try-on adjustments were made, especially the sleeves needed to be well fitted before the sewing machine was put into action.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    The end of season ball was approaching and I needed a long dress. My girlfriend and I had enrolled as 16-year olds at the local dance school to learn ballroom dancing in a class just for teenagers. The dressmaking was started three months in advance, after all, I was not a professional of this craft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In this photo, dated March 1954, I am wearing the finished product, posing in the garden at home. I have no photo from the ball, so I am glad about this photo of me as a 17 year old in my ballgown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Soon after the ball I shortened the dress and wore it to the Sunday afternoon “tea dances”, which were held in the grand ballroom downtown, a live band playing on stage. It was a very popular place for us young adults to practice our new steps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    My girlfriend didn’t make her own ball gown. Her mother regularly hired a dressmaker who came to people’s homes to do her job. Myself, I stopped sewing my own clothes once I could afford to pay for a dressmaker. It was only much later, in the late 1950’s, that I would buy a ready made dress. – Times were changing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    When I was a child, my mother made most of my clothes. She had learned to sew from her mother. Soon I was helping, stitching the seams on a new piece of clothing my mother was making. That’s how I learned to sew, and did so in earnest in my teens. This was the early […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-memoir"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18195"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24502,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18195\/revisions\/24502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lifelong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}