Another nerdy topic: Sewing
Mar. 26th, 2022 04:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altivoI started sewing clothing when I was about ten years old. Yes, over 60 years ago. My mom was always sewing stuff: clothes for us kids, or for herself, or household stuff like curtains and bedspreads. The machine fascinated me, and I asked her if I could learn. By then she was used to my tendency to violate 1950s gender role boundaries, and she just said "OK!" and got me started. By the time I was in high school, I was wearing stuff I had sewn for myself fairly often. Sixties fashion being what it was (Remember paisleys and Carnaby Street and all that? Well, some of you probably don't.) Mom and I got pretty extravagant at times and no one made much comment. The girls in my classes were impressed. The boys, not so much. But I didn't care anyway.
For much of my life I have taken this for granted. Fabric stores were in every mall or plaza, and they had designer patterns for all kinds of men's wear as well as elaborate costumes. Fabric was fairly inexpensive if you stayed away from wool suiting or silks and velvets. I sewed my way through college too, and was amused that the women's dorms had sewing rooms equipped with cutting tables and shared sewing machines. Men's, of course, did not. But the women's managers accepted my ID and let me use their sewing machine, so that was fine. When I moved out of the dorm and had my own apartment it wasn't long until I went and bought an old used machine of my own for all of $20. The lady running the sewing machine store where I bought it was a bit surprised but she encouraged me, offered advice, and ordered in some additional tools and accessories I wanted. I still have that old straight stitcher, but it's out in the barn loft now and may have turned into a lump of rust. My current machine is a White portable given to me by an artist friend who used it for quilting and stage costumes.
After we bought our first house together in Chicago, my husband got interested in sewing too. He had never done it, but his mother and grandmother did so he was familiar with the process. I got him started and he took off. Next thing I knew, he had bought a new Brother machine, and a serger as well. He started sewing stuff for me and gifts for his mom and nephews. Amazing. We added new patterns to the collection I already had, and now there must be a couple hundred of them.
However, in the last decade or so, I have noticed a major decline in the availability of sewing fabrics and supplies. It's really weird. I know, we are in the midst of a generation where not even the women are willing to do any cooking, and apparently sewing is considered "quaint." But oddly enough, there are still sewing machines for sale in every Walmart and most other big box stores. I'm not sure who is buying them or what they are used for. Fabric stores have literally disappeared. One national chain, Joann, still sells some fabric, but nothing like the selection and variety we used to have available. Most of what they stock seems focused on children's wear and wedding dresses. Ask them about shirting fabrics or Oxford cloth and you get blank looks. They know more about scrapbooking and jewelry making than they do about sewing. Other once widespread names like Minnesota Fabrics or Hancock Fabrics have completely disappeared.
The competitive market in sewing patterns, once dominated by two brands in the US but pursued by half a dozen other companies, has nearly collapsed. I went to look at men's designs at a Joann store last year and was horrified to find that they had none at all. The men's section in the pattern catalogs has been eliminated. The craft is not extinct, of course. Ebay and Etsy have lots of sellers dealing in old stock sewing patterns, both new and used. The prices asked are sometimes astounding, as high as $30 or more for one pattern. The store itself was dominated by polar fleece, a peculiar fabric that can be used for some things, like blankets or scarves, without any sewing or hemming, but can also be sewn into loose, bulky garments using a zig-zag machine or serger. Actual woven or knit fabrics are offered, but in a far smaller selection than what was available even ten years ago, and most of it in bright cartoon prints suitable for children to wear and that's it.
Clothing, I guess, is something you buy at the big box, made in Pakistan or Indonesia by cheap labor and never repaired or altered. If it frays or gets a tear, you just throw it away.
More and more, I fear, Western societies are becoming like the Eloi in H. G. Wells' classic The Time Machine The futuristic society made up of people who could not care for themselves at all and depended entirely upon work done by the Morlocks for their existence.
For much of my life I have taken this for granted. Fabric stores were in every mall or plaza, and they had designer patterns for all kinds of men's wear as well as elaborate costumes. Fabric was fairly inexpensive if you stayed away from wool suiting or silks and velvets. I sewed my way through college too, and was amused that the women's dorms had sewing rooms equipped with cutting tables and shared sewing machines. Men's, of course, did not. But the women's managers accepted my ID and let me use their sewing machine, so that was fine. When I moved out of the dorm and had my own apartment it wasn't long until I went and bought an old used machine of my own for all of $20. The lady running the sewing machine store where I bought it was a bit surprised but she encouraged me, offered advice, and ordered in some additional tools and accessories I wanted. I still have that old straight stitcher, but it's out in the barn loft now and may have turned into a lump of rust. My current machine is a White portable given to me by an artist friend who used it for quilting and stage costumes.
After we bought our first house together in Chicago, my husband got interested in sewing too. He had never done it, but his mother and grandmother did so he was familiar with the process. I got him started and he took off. Next thing I knew, he had bought a new Brother machine, and a serger as well. He started sewing stuff for me and gifts for his mom and nephews. Amazing. We added new patterns to the collection I already had, and now there must be a couple hundred of them.
However, in the last decade or so, I have noticed a major decline in the availability of sewing fabrics and supplies. It's really weird. I know, we are in the midst of a generation where not even the women are willing to do any cooking, and apparently sewing is considered "quaint." But oddly enough, there are still sewing machines for sale in every Walmart and most other big box stores. I'm not sure who is buying them or what they are used for. Fabric stores have literally disappeared. One national chain, Joann, still sells some fabric, but nothing like the selection and variety we used to have available. Most of what they stock seems focused on children's wear and wedding dresses. Ask them about shirting fabrics or Oxford cloth and you get blank looks. They know more about scrapbooking and jewelry making than they do about sewing. Other once widespread names like Minnesota Fabrics or Hancock Fabrics have completely disappeared.
The competitive market in sewing patterns, once dominated by two brands in the US but pursued by half a dozen other companies, has nearly collapsed. I went to look at men's designs at a Joann store last year and was horrified to find that they had none at all. The men's section in the pattern catalogs has been eliminated. The craft is not extinct, of course. Ebay and Etsy have lots of sellers dealing in old stock sewing patterns, both new and used. The prices asked are sometimes astounding, as high as $30 or more for one pattern. The store itself was dominated by polar fleece, a peculiar fabric that can be used for some things, like blankets or scarves, without any sewing or hemming, but can also be sewn into loose, bulky garments using a zig-zag machine or serger. Actual woven or knit fabrics are offered, but in a far smaller selection than what was available even ten years ago, and most of it in bright cartoon prints suitable for children to wear and that's it.
Clothing, I guess, is something you buy at the big box, made in Pakistan or Indonesia by cheap labor and never repaired or altered. If it frays or gets a tear, you just throw it away.
More and more, I fear, Western societies are becoming like the Eloi in H. G. Wells' classic The Time Machine The futuristic society made up of people who could not care for themselves at all and depended entirely upon work done by the Morlocks for their existence.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-27 03:22 am (UTC)I'm really lucky to have access to San Francisco where there are at least 3 big fabric stores left. One is in a Mission district basement, another in a warehouse district and a third moved recently from a trendy part of town to a less trendy one. All three seem to have a good business. That said, I agree with you that America has lost it's ability to clothe itself. We don't have the knowledge of how to grow or process plants that provide basic elements of clothing and the patterns are more and more lost.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-28 02:15 am (UTC)When Gary and I lived in Chicago from about 1982 to 1998, fabric stores were large and accessible. We loved to go shop in them. Now even in that large metropolitan area, there are almost no fabric stores of consequence. What few I know of other than Joann outlets are highly specialized, catering only to quilters for instance, or selling only upholstery materials. You are fortunate that you still have resources out there in the Bay area. In the summer of 1988 I was unemployed due to a reorganization by my former employer who moved almost all operations to the east coast. I declined to be moved and took severance instead. I spent that summer designing and sewing unique teddy bears and other plush animals and selling them at art fairs. I could do that because the local fabric stores carried sufficient amounts of "fake fur" fabrics. If there is any way to get the equivalent material today, it must be by ordering online from somewhere because all those suppliers are completely gone.
I do have to wonder what's going to become of US culture when no one remembers how to cook, or grow vegetables, or repair machinery. In fact, during my career in library work, more and more I began to wonder if we were moving toward total illiteracy as more and more people wanted only to watch videos or listen to audiobooks. Some even admitted that they found reading "too difficult."
no subject
Date: 2022-06-03 06:22 pm (UTC)