In the peak of my sewing career, when the kids were small, I made down jackets, snow pants, turtlenecks, overalls, pjs for them and for me. I accumulated a LOT of fabric and even more remnants. When we moved out of the house in Littleton and down to Durham, the hardest part for me was going through all the fabric and thinking about the memories each piece evoked, and needing to get rid of most of it (fabric, not memories).
A few days, I unearthed one of the pieces of wool I kept and found a tag on it from the Dorr Woolen Mill in Claremont, which means I probably bought it about 35 years ago. I paid $3.50 a yard for 3 1/2 yards. I have no idea what I planned to make - perhaps I had no plan, I just loved the color and the feel of it. Of course it had moth holes in the outer layer, but inside, at least 2 yards was still good, and so I'm going to make the jacket I mentioned above. All this is in preparation for making a jacket out of some Italian wool I bought in Rome in 2008 (I'm determined that fabric won't sit for 30 years). The Italian wool will be lined by a piece of silk brought back for me by Todd from one of his China trips.
Fabric is not just fabric to me. It is bound up in memories of learning to sew on my mother's treadle machine; of the breathtaking delight of owning my own machine and of the many hours spent happily browsing fabric and imagining and eventually executing various projects. In doing some family research, I discovered that my paternal grandmother's maiden name, Sherer, comes from the Middle English scherare which meant “one who dresses the pile of cloth; a shearer." In Latin this was rendered by cissor or scissore. This could explain my love of all things fabric-related. The first photo is the old wool; second photo is the Italian.
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