Sew Informal.

The sewing machine joins what the scissors have cut asunder, plus whatever else comes in its path. Mason Cooley.

My mother is a most extraordinary woman. I say that as a daughter who could not be more unlike her if I tried. It is Liddy who is like her. My mother is a detail oriented, left brained thinker & everything she does she does well. I think I gave up trying early on. How does one compete with perfection?


I do however appreciate my mother enormously. Different is good ~ though I'm not always sure she would say the same thing about me ~ or Ditz for that matter! Ditz & I ~ well, we can get most people thinking the pair of us belong in the loony bin. We are good for the big picture stuff, for a riotous giggle when things are at their bleakest & a hug when you need one most but we are not the people to ask when you have a practical need. Oh, our heart is in the right place but, well, the doing comes hard & the end result may not be exactly what you had in mind.


This was certainly the case when Liddy needed something special to wear for her Formal. Now I can sew...after a fashion: straight seams, crotches in shorts & certain sorts of pockets. A ditzy glitzy dress out of shimmery shiny fabric ~ no! That is very definitely my mother's department. I believe she even sewed her own wedding dress. I hope I remembered that right or I will get a phone call to tell me I have remembered yet another bit of family history wrong. Well, if my mother didn't sew her own wedding dress she was more than capable of doing so! And just as well because Liddy is my daughter after all & enough like me to decide, in the end, she just wasn't going to be like everyone else & go for some gorgeous floating gown that would make her look like Cinderella & feel like a prize idiot.

Nope, Liddy wanted something that would make her feel like herself ~ only super special. She wanted something flamboyant & oriental ~ & she didn't have a pattern!

She had material ~ thanks to her paternal grandmother so armed herself with her material & spent a long weekend with my mother to sew up this. She looked absolutely stunning despite towering over her ever so handsome escort. [That's my youngest boy there, proudly escorting his sister!] Just look at that sweet Chinese collar & the nice stiff way the barely a sleeve at all sits. And the clasps cleverly matching! And this material is no joy to sew! Everything, absolutely everything, has to be hand tacked otherwise it slip slides all over the place & frays like nobody's business.



My mother sews beautifully. Everyone wanted to know where Liddy got her outfit but mum's not going into business. I have made it abundantly clear however that she is not to die before I've got my girls safely married off because I just know the pair of them will want something that just isn't to be found in the shops & guess who I will be turning to to run up that little white number? Yep. A girl's best friend is her mum!