A stitch in time can save you a fortune

Tag : Calico Fabric

I have a confession about a stash which grows every year. It's thekind of collection which grows when mothers downsize and emptytheir linen presses. Old lace and satins; embroidered silks pickedup for a song while travelling in India. Batik lengths fromIndonesia. Wool checks which will have to wait some time to comeback into fashion. It's the drug-of-fashion stash regularly fed bySydney's biggest dealer - Tessuti's fabrics - when you just have tohave that Lisa Ho end of line fabric.
But it's time to fess up. These days my stash only runs down when Irefuse to pay $400 plus for a silk dress to wear to a friend'swedding, when I can run it up for under $100 in superior fabric,and about five hours' work. It is pure economics at work.
All the women in my family sewed, some better than others. Mygrandmother was a shocker, while my mother excelled. And then therewere the great aunts who were something to behold.
These women could run up a tailored suit with nothing more than ahomemade brown paper pattern, sharp scissors and woollen fabricimported from England. The irony was not lost that the woolprobably came from sheep born, raised and shorn within 100kilometres of their homes in central NSW.
Small of breast, big of arse? Sway backed? Hips too skinny forwords? No worries, the stuffed calico tailor's dummy, or the funkyplastic-coated wire mesh models of the 1960s, ensured a perfectfit.
In old age, her eyesight failing, one of those great aunts gave meher prized Singer. It was a Rolls-Royce of a machine, steel andblack enamelled, flash in a wooden case. It is still doing duty fora friend, whose sewing begins and finishes with school uniformhems.
The dismantling of tariff protection for clothing and textiles hashad consequences even greater than the immediate and personal lossof Australian jobs in manufacturing. It's been an ecologicaldisaster; cheap, colourful, crappy clothing, bought today andthrown tomorrow. It goes straight from teenagers' overflowingdrawers into landfill.
Home sewing was an economic necessity 30 years ago for many women.You made what you needed; you made what you wanted for specialoccasions. Good quality clothing did duty for years, and only anobsessive needlewoman would end up with an overflowing wardrobe.
I did some digging back to 1979, when my grandmother parted with$70 to buy me a respectable, non-designer blouse and skirt at adepartment store. Not quite a meeting with the Queen; it was more ameeting with the Governor-General. The minimum wage for women atthe time was $154 a week.
Industry records show the nominal rate of government assistance forclothing in 1979 was 65 per cent, but whether that was straighttariff protection my friendly helper at the Department ofInnovation, Industry, Science and Research was unable to determine.Certainly, the tariff on finished textiles - the cloth for the homeseamstress - was less. In 1990 the tariff on clothing and finishedtextiles was still 55 per cent. It has since dropped to 17.5 percent.
When tariffs were high, it was worth your while to sew. It waseconomic to sew elasticised materials, making, can you believe,T-shirts. Now there are thousands of home overlockers overlooked atthe back of cupboards. While Fairtrade cotton has not made hugeinroads into the Australian market, in Britain you can buy anethical T-shirt for under $7.
It's time we revisited the economics, and ecology, of the clotheswe wear.
Sewing machines have never been so cheap. Many women have machines,unused, which can be loaned to a new generation. Want the latestdesigns? Paper patterns are easy to follow today, compared to theperiod pieces of the 1950s.
For novices, the key to confidence is this: less time on Facebook,more time practising, and enlist someone to give you tailoring helpand guidance.
School formal season is coming up. Mothers, aunties, family friendsand grandmothers - unite - and help your teenagers create thecoolest, unique formal dresses. If they insist on "store bought",my fabric dealer may still stock the ultimate consumer sop: theTessuti tag label.