Skirt Looks Stupid!
I spend at least one Saturday a month trolling the thrift stores for whatever tickles my fancy. I’m thankful that I am able to spend at the thrift stores and here is nothing like the thrill of finding some oddball thing I didn’t even know I needed! But as a writer, sometimes the thrill of it is finding a story. I know much of what ends up at thrift stores has gotten there because some thoughtless person got rid of whatever it was. Sometimes children are cleaning out a parent’s house, and they aren’t attached to the things. Sometimes, it’s something outgrown, or not needed, or an extra. I know, because I have a giveaway bin in the basement, and that’s where I toss things that we no longer need or want.
When I find something interesting, something unusual, I try to figure out what the story is. Or better yet, I make one up. A recent trip to a local thrift store led to me finding this:
Actually, there were two boxes. This one was full of home decor patterns – curtains, cushions, slip covers, stuffed animals. The second box was full of garment patterns. My first thought was that a daughter had had to clean out her mother’s sewing room. Two cardboard banker’s boxes stuffed to overflowing with patterns seemed like something I’d find in a mother’s sewing room. I know some day my daughter is going to have to clean out mine, and it may not end up being any better.
The second box, however, was more intriguing than the first. Most of the patterns in it had notes on the front. Notes about length, about leaving off this piece or that or adding something. Then there would be name and a phone number, and some of them said “paid.”
Then there was this one:
Lots of construction notes, and “skirt is stupid.”
I wonder which skirt she thought was stupid?
I write on my patterns, too. Sometimes I make notes about things I changed, or about things I wanted to change next time I made it. Since I have some patterns with similarity, I will sometimes write on the pattern what fabric I used, or what outfit I’d made, so I’d remember next time I wanted to use it.
I have to think that this woman sewed professionally. There were too many patterns with notes and names on them. Like she’d purchased the pattern to make a specific outfit as ordered for someone. When she passed away or had to enter an assisted living facility, her patterns had gone to the local thrift store. I, myself, am using a sewing machine that was once used by a professional seamstress. I wonder what happened to this woman’s machines (she likely had more than one), her leftover notions, her tin of buttons and boxes of lace? Those would have been treasures to have. Perhaps the daughter kept those, only getting rid of the patterns. It’s hard to say.
So many thrift stores, so many stories. I wonder what stories are being made up about the stuff I dump at the thrift store?
I inherited my mother’s sewing stuff. She had patterns I remember from when I was little all the way up to the dresses she made for my bridesmaids for my wedding. She taught me to read a pattern when I was old enough to come to the fabric store and pick out my own clothes. She made most of my clothes when I was younger and I still bought patterns, fabric and notions when I was a teen and 20 something. I would bring everything to her and ask her to make it for me. (She said I always challenged her sewing abilities since I wanted this skirt and that bodice and those sleeves – sometimes off of 3 different patters!)
I have stored away some of the older patterns – many of them back in style now – to be used sometime in the future. My sister and I went through all her notions and I got the lions share of them since I do more sewing than she does. I loved going through everything – all the memories it brought back.
I’m glad you got this woman’s patterns (Oh, yes, I write on mine too as did my mother.) so that someone will treasure them and use them again.