Adventures in My Sewing Room

One of the pleasures of winter is the long dark evenings that can be spent in my sewing room. This is a tiny room off my kitchen with a window overlooking the cemetery (not that it counts on dark winter nights)containing two long utility tables, my sewing machine, my serger, an ironing board, many baskets filled with notions and a positive mountain of fabric. In my own defense let me add that all the fabric is cleaned, folded and stored in large zipper-loc plastic bags that are labeled with fiber, amounts and any other pertinent information.

Sister Claudia gets credit for this. Back in Home Ec many long years ago she advocated storing all the needed items for a project together - thread, zippers, buttons, interfacing, pattern. When I buy fabric that I know has a specific purpose I do as Sister Claudia says but that comprises about 10% of the overall stash. The other 90% falls into the what-cool-thing-can-I-do-with-this category.

I love fabric! I just love touching it and handling it and day dreaming about what it could become. And I love finding a piece of extremely unusual fabric that is beautiful but so unique that I have no idea what to do with it. But I will. My stash has a lot of pieces like that.

I like simple clothes in plain lines - drawstring pants, T-shirts, kimono jackets, the perfect shirt. I dream of the perfect shirt. About 20 years ago I bought Elsebeth Gynther’s Easy Style: Sewing the New Classics and it is the most used book about sewing I own. Elsebeth is from Denmark and her approach to sewing is to make very simple styles in very beautiful fabrics with lots of exquisite details - perfect top-stitching, elegant little slash pockets, interesting collars and necklines, etc. I have made nearly everything in Elsbeth’s book and those garments always wind up being the ones I never want to throw away.

David Page Coffin also wrote two excellent books on making the perfect shirt, Shirtmaking and Shirtmaking Techniques. In its pages he details how to draft a pattern just for you and how to add all the exquisite tailored details that make the difference between custom-made and RTW. If you can only afford 2 sewing books those are the 2 to own. In Coffin’s book there are photos of his closet and his wife’s closet both filled with the perfect shirts he has made for them in wonderful colors and fabrics. Which gave me an idea. What if I took the shirt pattern I drafted from his instructions and made a shirt or two from my unusual-but-gorgeous fabrics stash?

I just made one of his shirts in a thick, soft rose-colored cotton chamois and I have been wearing it constantly. So I decided to make it again only this time in a violet-gray Thai silk that has been hanging around for years. I made it with a stand-up collar and big pockets and it is great. So onward through the stash.

There used to be a great remnants store over in Danvers called Winmill Fabrics. It’s gone now but a good portion of its stock is in my sewing room — most acquired because it was intriguingly unusual. So the other day I pulled out a piece that has been a great mystery to me for years. It is 3 yards x 54" of a knit with a little stretch, probably some sort of polyester, but the finish is beyond belief — softer than anything I have ever touched with a muted, glowing suede-y look but not as heavy as the expensive faux-suedes. The color is a deep, dusky plum and I have considered dresses, trousers, jackets — never finding the right use for it.

As of last night it is almost finished as a Perfect Shirt. I made a deep vent in the back, two plain pockets, turnback cuffs, and a classic collar with stand. The fabric is so beautiful it needs no embellishment. All it needs is buttons and buttonholes and I have some gorgeous dark gray and plum abalone buttons for it. I can’t wait to wear it.

Hmmmmmmmmm, what next?

Thanks for reading.