Made by Hand

There is a great magazine for younger women called Bust which I am in love with. I love the attitude of the writers/editors - being a girl is great, sex is fun and natural, making things yourself is cool. The ads alone are worth the price of the magazine. I’m a little old to be a Bust-girl but I love the way they think and write. There are frequent articles about knitting, sewing, cooking - all those homely arts that the mothers of these young women, my generation of feminists, rejected. A recent article on hand sewing was titled “Hand Jobs”. I loved it.

In one article about knitting the writer said that her mother was a fifty-something feminist (my generation) who thought things like sewing, knitting and baking were demeaning and so she, the writer, had never learned them. But now those skills have become very popular and each issue of that magazine has articles about them. I’m so glad.

When I was a girl I learned to sew from my maternal grandmother and my 4H teacher, to cook and bake from my paternal grandmother and mother, and to crochet and knit from the nuns. I’ve continued to practice them all my life and never felt demeaned. I held corporate jobs most of my adult life and evenings spent sewing were the perfect antidote. However, it wasn’t until recently that I started talking about it much.

There was a lady who lived in our neighborhood named Marsha. I babysat her kids a lot. She was beautiful - tall and elegant - and always wore beautiful clothes. She made them herself. I loved babysitting there because she had these amazing, fabulous sewing magazines called “Elegance”. I never saw them anywhere but at her house. They were oversized and thick with gorgeous photographs of gorgeous women in gorgeous clothes. On the opposite page there would be suggestions for patterns by different pattern companies - mostly Vogue and Butterick - and samples of amazing fabrics you could buy from them that would be suitable for the garment.

The prices of the fabrics were outrageous but we lived in a small town and the only fabric store was in the basement of Kanter’s Department Store and everything available was chosen for durability, low price, and ease in washing - nothing you’d see in Vogue. Sometimes Marsha would talk to me about sewing but she didn’t want people to know too much about her skills as a seamstress. She’d been embarrassed often enough when she walked into the country club in some stunning creation and a woman would scream across the room, “Oh my God, don’t tell me you made that, too!!!”

It seems peculiar now to think about that but back then I knew how she felt. Back them home-made was equated with being poor and not able to afford store-bought. I felt the sting of that a few times myself. “You MADE that?????? Oh God, I couldn’t be bothered!!!” I dreaded those words.

Not so today. I so admire this young generation of knitters and sewers! They have reclaimed their feminine handiwork with zest and flair. I love the new knitting pattern books and the adorable things these young women have designed - funky hats and sweaters, lacy camisole tops and bikinis, “cozies” for cell phones, iPods and PDAs. And they are all colorful and funky and wonderful. I carry my knitting with me everywhere these days and knit proudly - on the beach or in my car. And when people admire my new rose-colored velvet t-shirt or a pair of lemon yellow linen drawstring trousers I proudly announce “I made them!”

I hope Marsha, wherever she is, does too. BTW, thanks, Marsha, for introducing me to Elegance - both the book and you.

Thanks for reading.