First of all, is it possible that my mom invented using drinking straws to corral spools of thread? I’ve never seen anything like that before, but then again, I am possibly the very last person to keep up with trends that involve storing sewing supplies.

When I was growing up, the only store-bought clothes I ever had were my Brownie and Girl Scout uniforms. My mom made everything else. She made matching dresses for my sister and me, for Sundays. She made shorts sets, and coats, and dresses, and elastic-waist pants, and pajamas.

You know what? Now that I am into the third paragraph, I have to confess that our swimsuits were not homemade. Except for one year, when there was a store on 34th Street that sold material for swimsuits. (That was an embarrassing year at the swimming pool: there was some problem with the elastic thread that tended to stretch out when it got wet.) (And that experiment wasn’t repeated.)

I feel better, now that I’ve set the record straight on that.

My memories are hazy on how it worked to pick out patterns and fabric for my outfits when I was very young, which leads me to believe that I didn’t have any say it: I just wore what was there, and that was that. Later on, though, I did have a vote in the process. I can remember, though, standing still while my mom used a yardstick to measure hems in my new dresses. (In junior high and high school, I always wanted the skirts to be significantly shorter than she pinned them. It was sort of a guaranteed argument. The female version of men and their sons fighting over hair length, I guess.)

The expectation was there that my sister and I would learn to sew. And we did. At home, first, then through lessons at the Singer Sewing Center in Caprock Shopping Center. I was good at threading the machine. And the bobbin. And at laying out patterns on the fabric; I could even match plaids! I think I could sew a pretty good dart, and I know I could press it the correct way. But that was about the extent of my sewing abilities. I didn’t really like it, and sort of felt goaded into sewing. I’d have been happier if my clothes had come from Hemphill Wells, or Sweetbriar, or Dunlap’s. (I actually don’t really know if those were the cool stores back then, but let’s assume they were.)

One summer – I think it was the one before I started high school – my mom did take me to Hemphill Wells. We looked at dresses. Didn’t try any on, and sure as hell didn’t BUY any. We did, though, stop at Cloth World on the way home, with the memories of those dresses still fresh, so we could get patterns and fabric to sort-of copy what we’d just seen.

But those clothes still stand out in my mind. There was the green-and-blue sleeveless dress that had blue topstitching on the green, and green topstitching on the blue. And the dress with a big floaty collar. And a blue velveteen one with lace sleeves. Or a mostly-blue calico print shift with bell sleeves. And a purple skirt and vest with a gold blouse. (It was the 70s, OK?) Or a winter-white wool cape. Or, for the first year girls could wear pants to school, a “coordinated pants suit” that had a long vest over bell-bottom pants. (“Coordinated pants suits” were required. None of this un-matched pants-and-top stuff, and certainly no jeans!)

Later, there was a chiffon and lace wedding dress, with approximately one mile of lace sewn by hand to the full chiffon skirt.

So it is starting to seem like my dislike of homemade clothes is something I’ve projected back to my past, instead of something that actually happened. Why else would I have such strong memories of those clothes my mom made for me? Why else would I have, right now, hanging in my coat closet, my recently-rediscovered wedding dress?

And why would seeing those spools of thread, threaded onto straws, have brought a tear to my eye?

Lubbock, Texas
photographed 8.13.2013