That was gonna be OK. I didn’t need to stay faithful to original style AND I don’t focus on having my buttons (or socks or earrings or anything ‘cept maybe my shoes) match. I was just looking for another fun item. The limitation was that the originals were BIG. These are some econo sized buttonholes.
The coat had been my stylin’ Aunt Mary Ann’s – she gave it to me a few years before she died. It was her fave winter wrap back in the 60s. Aside from needing buttons, it’s in fabulous shape – the woman took awesome care of her belongings!In any case, I walked into the joint and was instantly blown away by all the bolts of alluring, magic cloth. I wanted to touch everything — feel the satins, faux furs, laces under my fingertips. Also too, such dazzling colors!
I really wish I’d paid more attention in Home Ec. now. Standing there I was struck by all the exciting, creatively fun and beautiful outfits I coulda been crafting for myself over all these long years.Why wasn’t I a Home Ec Honey? I was pissed at being shunted into cooking and sewing because of my, ya know, vagina-ness. Boys got to take “shop” where they worked with wood and made cool shit (or so I thought anyway). Why couldn’t I take shop? NO FAIRS!
Also too, I was in a class taught by some Nixon-ite uptight twat with an Aquanetted helmet of hair, doubtless more durable than the football team’s gear. I simply could NOT relate. Creativity was NOT an option but then this was the very early ‘70s and we were living in tiny coal town (with an, at that time, small college where my father taught) Western Pennsylvania. I believe, at least in the junior high there, it was still the ‘50s — at latest.
Had the teacher been even a teensy bit hip or just not such a relic of tiny-box-republican-constrained-femininity I might have seen the exciting, creative wonder, beauty and glory of creating stuff out of cloth and yarn.
Meanwhile in the here and now of the discount fabric store, I didn’t find any large and amazing buttons. Their jumble bin was gone. Still, I managed to lay my hands on some interesting bits that, with a little string and strong glue, could become cool as fuck buttons.
It may be too late for me to become a Fabric Queen but I can create my own cool sculptural button anyway.
My mother sewed a lot when I was growing up. I have distinct tactile memories to going to the fabric stores with her on multiple occasions and racing around and under and through the racks, fondling the various textures and getting lost in the colors. I never learned more than the basics of mending from her, but I loved those trips to the store.
ReplyDeleteMy mother never took me to the store with her, you lucky dog, you!
DeleteHer mother (who I never got to meet) was a seamstress as was her Aunt Mamie (who I DID know). My father's mother and sister both crocheted gorgeous, big blankets. I think all that awesome fabric creativity took one look at me and said "Nope! The world does NOT nerd more disco threads!" Hmmph!