Random Garments That I've Made in the Past! And other Ramblings!

Actually, these first two are not things that I made. My mother wore this as a Halloween costume when she was 10 years old. So that makes it a little over 75 years old! The lady who made it was one of a whole bunch of kids who lived in a house near them when my mom was very little. Her family was going to move way out into the country so my grandfather talked the parents into letting Annie live with them so she could stay in school. I always thought of her as an aunt. She lived with them until she got married. She sewed, as you can see, for my mom. I may have told this story on here before. It is sounding familiar as I type it. I guess I could look back over my posts to see, but I am feeling too lazy for that, so if you've read about this before, please forgive my forgetfulness!

My middle daughter made this poodle skirt for herself when she was in, I think, 5th grade!!! It would be about 20 years old. It's pretty wrinkled, but you can tell that she did a great job on it.

This is a close up of the bodice of the confirmation dress that I made for my youngest daughter when she was about 12. This is about 15 years old. I always did like that trim treatment that I did on this collar. I made the little ribbon "tabs ?" for want of a better description, from a length of regular narrow ribbon and the roses from different widths of the same ribbon.

All of these clothes have been hanging in a closet smooshed together, hence the wrinkles. I am feeling lazy, as I said above, or I would have ironed them for this photo shoot. Lol
My oldest daughter was in a show that she needed a Pink Ladies jacket from Grease. This is what we came up with. This jacket is about 16 years old.

This same daughter needed a white formal for the same program (so about 16 years ago) and for another program at school. I sewed strings of pearls by hand on the outline of each and every flower on this lace that summer. There are also dangling teardrop pearls embellishing this gown. The sleeves are what I think you call tulip sleeves, where the front overlaps the back in a crisscross fashion. This was actually made using a wedding gown pattern. My second daughter also wore this dress three years later. She really didn't want to, but I pretty much told her she had to, because at that time I didn't have time to make another equivalent to this one and I thought it was pretty. I think my 2nd daughter just wanted one of her own and one that was more up-to-date, since styles change so drastically every year. I still feel kind of bad about this. I hope she doesn't harbor ill feelings about it still.
Front

Sleeve

Back

Front again. You can see that I have it on my guest bed that has the really old chenille spread on it that I love. The wardrobe that some of these garments are hanging on was part of the first bedroom suite that my husband's grandparents bought. We are using the whole suite in this room.

This is the dress that my oldest daughter wore to her 8th grade "prom". Those rosettes were fun to make. This would be about 20 years old.

Boy, I really should have ironed this!

This dress was my 2nd daughter's Easter dress one year. Can you tell that it was in the early 90s? Hum... I think this one is about 19 years old.

Oh now, this is my pride and joy! lol This is the bridesmaid dress that I made to wear in my sister's wedding. I was 16 at the time, so that was 41 years ago. The fabric is crepe and over the years it has become very stiff! Weird! It really is a cute pattern. I don't know how well it shows up in the picture, but there's a little belt like thing attached at the empire waistline. Otherwise it is a simple a-line. This was a very popular style! I had a short hot pink velvet version of this, too.

I made this LOVELY cape when I was a senior in high school (40 years ago) for my 3rd year of home ec. I also had a mini skirt out of this same fabric that I wore with it. About 2-3 inches of the skirt showed beneath the bottom of the cape. I thought I was really something in this get-up!!!

I did make bound button holes and welt(not pockets,but) slits for this cape.

It is lined. I actually learned some tailoring techniques making this cape. Our next project was to make a suit or a coat that was tailored. Mine was a red wool full length (well full length to the bottom of my short dresses, anyway) dress coat. I made a dress to go with it. I wish I still had that outfit. It really was my pride and joy. I loved it so much that I wore it to a UT football game. It was the first UT game I'd ever been too, and I didn't know better than to wear red to Big Orange country! How could I have been so dumb! Anyway, it got too hot so I took the coat off and laid it on the bleacher beside me. Someone dropped a cigarette on it and burned a hole on the inside of the collar. I cried. It didn't show, but I knew it was there. I don't think I ever wore it again. I'm glad smoking isn't allowed there now. I'm also glad that girls don't dress up like that for football games anymore. They really did back then, though!!!

I won't bore you with any more. There are a few more things still around that I made, but the grand daughters have played with most of them as dress up clothes and aren't in good enough shape to photograph.
I started thinking about all of these when I started taking apart my dress to remake for Kellen. I have it all washed, taken apart, ironed, and I have the pattern pieces ready to cut out.

Today is my father-in-law's 81st birthday. We bought Kentucky Fried Chicken and made rice, green beans, bread, and bought a cake for him. My girls know how much their Papaw loves KFC, so they will know how much he loved it. He was complaining just the other night that he hadn't had any good fried chicken in a long time. I thought about frying it myself, but I knew I couldn't come close to his KFC, so I didn't.
My mom is having very few days that she's not confused lately. It is so hard to see her REAL SELF going before her physical self is ready to go. I guess that sounds awful, but it is very hard to watch some days. I have to laugh at times, though. Yesterday, I asked her what she had for dinner (I went at lunch time and back last night after dinner). She said she had Mongoose and snow cream. I'm laughing as I type this! Tonight, she asked if I had a change of pajamas since I was going to the hospital to sit with "the father of your children" because he had hurt his back when a chair hit his chest. I guess this isn't funny. The sad times are when she thinks she's been talking to her mother and sisters and she thinks something really bad is happening. She thought a building had collapsed yesterday, and that no one would tell her about it because someone had been hurt, and we just didn't want her to know. But, when I go tomorrow she may just be herself! I hope so!