Scissor Dreams

Scissors, I came across this word while I was looking for sewing supplies and I started thinking about how sewing and creating has become such a large part of who I am. Sewing is one of my earliest memories and one of the first things I ever made was a mermaid out of an old sock as a gift for my grandmother. Years later, after her death, I found it in her box of "Important papers". She was the reason that I sewed, she bought me a sewing machine and a good pair of scissors when I was nine and told me how to care for them. Only use these scissors to cut fabrics and dreams, she said and I took heed.

One of my fondest memories as a child was finding a massive box of 1950's skirts in the attic. It became my treasure trove, and the prints fueled my imagination. I dove into that fabric and created my own style of clothing that no one else had, it was the sixties - and everyone looked the same. It also started me on recycling and how you could take something discarded and find value in it. This came in very handy as we were a family of twelve children and new clothes were not an option. As you can see below, my mother had her hands full!

In high school I was able to take Home Economics and learned many new skills on my sewing machine. What an adventure it was! I had my own fabric stash and was always on the lookout for anything that could be reused. I made simple tops which were quite the thing to wear with hip-huggers in the seventies. I started to sell some of my sewing and it helped to pay for my passion. I graduated high school and won the top honor in Home Economics, I brought home a trophy for my three piece suede suit, lined and bias trimmed using an old silk tie for the binding. My name on the trophy went under my older sister Nina who had won several years earlier.

After graduation, I married and the babies came. Now I was sewing sweet baby outfits-smocked, embroidered and shadow embroidered. I sewed our drapes and began to sew for a local interior designer which allowed me to stay home with my sweet babies. Before I knew it, these babies were wanting evening gowns and wedding dresses! It was such a special thing to have them bring me photos of what they wanted to wear and we would sit and sketch it out and design it together. Those days of collaboration I will forever cherish with the sweetest clients I would ever have. Now they are all grown up and married with homes of their own.

I was wondering what to sew next when my daughter called and said she had entered me into a contest called Runway Runaway and it was a contest about clothing made from all recycled materials. I felt like I had come full circle and that it was meant to be. I suddenly looked at everything in a new light. Tearing down the old black netting around the kids trampoline and dragging it to the trash, I looked over my shoulder and suddenly envisioned Audrey Hepburn in an elegant evening gown! I was even able to use the zipper in a low daring back, an enormous pleated skirt and topped off with a small veiled hat. It won first place.

The next year, a friend gave me an old parachute, an army tent and a blanket that had been her husbands and I created a collection with three pieces that I entitled "Peace". I made a flowing evening gown from the parachute and Miss teen South Caroline modelled it in the show. The tent I made into a mans suit with a pair of pants that would fit into any dystopian novel and the blanket was a very modern evening gown tufted with scraps left from the orange parachute. All three pieces tied for first place.

The next year I was not going to enter but a local law firm commissioned me to create a piece representing their law firm with all their worn out ties and scarves worn from many years of trials and work, too worn to work in any more but plenty of life left. It was not going to be entered under my name but under the law firm for them and I created a party dress that was styled with swirls and swirls of color and then cinched in at the waist and titled it, "Party when the Job is Done!". I made a matching skirt for the attorney presenting it at the fashion show and she tells me she still wears it, she is cute as a button. It won first place.

I was offered to create a collection for Charleston Fashion Week that year! It was an opportunity to start my own fashion line! I considered the time it would involve and weighed the benefits it offered. I decided to pass, I did not want to be a fashion designer, I wanted to create for those I loved. It would make this wonderful creative outlet I enjoyed seem like a job. Sewing remains my place I escape to when I need to create and dream. And now there are grandchildren to sew for! One day they will have stories about me to tell and I hope it moves their heart to explore all that life has to offer! I remind them, that to create art is as close to real magic as you can get.