Not Exactly a Dream Come True

like to sew.

It isn't because I can make things I can't find anywhere for myself, or to fill a hole in my closet. It doesn't even particularly stem from a fashionable interest, although I went from believing that jeans were the devil to actually owning several pairs around sixth grade.
(I wasn't completely strange. My school was deeply religious, extremely small, and sheltered. I wore knee socks, a cardigan, a button up blouse, and a plaid skirt every day for three years without fail, having graduated from my plaid jumper from previous years.)
I learned about designers, from YSL to Richard Tyler, classic sportswear from Clair McCardell and the surprising details of Commes des Garcons. I read magazines, books on fashion, books on sewing, and books on fictional designers and the industry. I even watched an expose.

It was an education.

I still don't like wearing pants.

Anyways, I sew. I don't make purses, and I don't make pillowcases. I used to embroider, but it was time consuming and I never really had the patience necessary for it. I like prints, stiff fabric, and I've never been able to follow a pattern for the life of me. This is somewhat detrimental, but still I persist. I like looking at beautiful, intricate clothing, with special details and lovely fabric. There are beaded dresses, ones with sequin trims and braided belts and beribboned sashes, made from chiffon and silk and velvet, satins and brocades. None of that is what I make.

I make dresses. Pants aren't difficult, but they don't feel rewarding, either. Neither do blouses. Skirts are almost too simple, although sometimes I like to make them. They're usually summer dresses, with a print. A basic style.

There's nothing flashy or particularly eye catching about them. Not the sort of thing to turn your head on the street, I'd say, or make you do a double take. I could probably easily find them in a vintage store, or even an everyday one.

Most of the time, I wonder why I even bother. Talent is one thing, vision is another, and I'm not endowed with either of those in spades. (Although most of the time I wish those visionary fashion students knew how to sew properly. They can make a toile and a pattern and a sketch, and the dress doesn't fit at all. I realize it's good for mass-production, but shouldn't it be flattering for at least the maker, if not the wearer? I can't make a toile. But my dresses fit.)

I'm not a great seamstress, and I don't have a lot of patience for it. I'm messy and easily distracted, but something about putting something together, giving it a shape and a form out of pieces and thread running through the back, along the collar, flaring out into new lines is exciting to me. I can make something and feel the shape of it.

It's not something quite as satisfying in art, unless it's sculpture, which I'm not good at, particularly.

The most basic art, reproducing a scene or an object or a person onto a two dimensional board, is simply a matter of observation and a certain kind of sight for interpretation. I don't know if sewing is the same way, and if it is, I'm certainly not that clear-sighted.
I don't have a vision I want to bring to life. But I do have a certain measure of excitement, or pleasure in a completed piece.

My school was also a church. Every fall, the women of the church would make apple crisps in the basement, in the kitchen and sell them. They wore sturdy aprons and had calloused, efficient hands. When the apples were chopped, some of the juice would inevitably stain the soft wood of the counters.
There was a large tree in the courtyard, enormous and hulking. One of its largest branches had been chopped off, so it was very straight and very tall.
It was a very beautiful church.