Spring Babies

Finally, I have completed the twins’ gowns. Our friend’s daughter is due tomorrow with babes of a good size – an instant family, one girl and one boy. Clever!

I have not made this pattern for twenty three years. My fingers are ‘thicker’ and my eyes did not do fine sewing at night. Fine cotton lawn with pure cotton thread and eyelet lace; constitute the ingredients. In the end I scalloped the hem and I have sourced a suitable box to present them.

I know there are Country Institutes and similar groups of ladies that sew and mend the world but I wonder if there should be more? (Bureaucracy prevents us having a ‘place of assembly’ here without paying a hefty resource consent fee to the local council.) Once, people of all ages made scarves and socks for the war effort and I think, given the recession and the terrible impact on victims of Christchurch’s earthquake, there deserves a place for a handmade item, to be given with warm wishes and a kind thought.

Lovely Lace

I have a box of old sewing bits and pieces. I couldn’t help thinking about who wove the lace threads, half a century ago. Were they cottage industry workers from quaint cottages or did they sit battery hen style, in a draughty huge workshop in a smoggy Midland’s city, wearing grey smocks?

I wonder what garment, the collar came from? It has been in the family as long as I remember and I think my grandmother gave it to me. The laces are English in origin, for New Zealand was a colonial outpost, and we traded butter and lamb for fineries in those days.

I came across my French embroidery kit I bought in Saumur, from a petite lace and haberdashery shop near the river. (It is a pity my French is not up to scratch, as the instructions are very detailed.)

Days have gone too when we carried a fine handkerchief. Grub roses. Drawn thread work. Entirely hand stitched.

I wonder what I will do with these little threads of history?

Baby clothes

Some days are just that little more poignant than others, don’t you think? It is a perfect May Day with a radiant blue sky and a few puffy cotton wool clouds on the horizon. It is also a perfect day for sorting out the sewing boxes.

When I came across the 1950’s pattern my mother had given me, I felt sad. She would have loved to have seen her granddaughters all grown up and enjoying their lives. I dug out the little baby gowns she had made when my daughters were born and traced her delicate embroidery and smiled at the memory of her sitting at her tiny black Singer sewing machine, crafting these with love.