Elizabeth James is my muse. The origin story.
Hey there sewing friend !
Have you ever seen the film “The Parent Trap” yep, that one with Lindsey Lohan. Well, apart from being a CLASSIC, a hill I am prepared to die on. “The parent trap” was the spark that lit my sewing flame. What you may have missed in the film was that the mum (played by Natasha Richardson) was a wedding dress designer. As soon as I saw her lifestyle, career and general vibe, it was a done deal. I was going to BE her.
Hand sewing was my first attempt to sew, I remember riding my scooter down to the local haberdashery shop in the village to get some fabric. I would then scooter back home, past the dairy to get some sweets of course, and then sat in my bedroom attempting to make a skirt or pillowcase, but eventually just making a mess.
My first ever sewing project I remember, unfortunately very vividly. It was (brace for it) a hot pink leopard print LYCRA mini skirt. I’ll let that one sink in for a second. I was 8, what was I thinking! probably not much, clearly. But what I do remember is at the time my dad worked as an accountant for a clothing label, I gave it to him to give to his boss to see if I could be their new fashion designer (business mindset from the off!)
A few nights later, I asked my dad if his work had liked it, he said “The fashion market is not ready for it now” A blow to little 8 year old Annie, but one that 28 year old Annie looks back with fondness.
After the strike out that was the lycra mini skirt, my parents saw that I was getting into sewing, so, on Christmas day that year I got my first ever sewing machine. What my parents failed to purchase in their Christmas-buying-present-haste was fabric. Therefore, if it wasn’t bolted to the floor, it was mine to sew with. In the following days tea towels, bedsheets, even curtains went “missing”
Over those early years, I learnt from a book. There were no YouTube tutorials, no Instagram, no nothing. It was me, my book, and that's about it. I didn't even start taking lessons until I went to high school and that was still a few years away. So when I say that I started ugly. I truly mean it in every sense of the word.
Moving onto highschool, I got my first taste of what it was like to be taught sewing. My first sewing teacher was lovely, and every day I had “soft tech” (sewing) on my time table was a good day. One of the very first sewing projects we did was a pair of pyjama shorts. Now there's a story !
As my parents didn't know where to buy fabric, very evident from Christmas, when it came to choosing a fabric for my school sewing project, I had no clue where to start. Some of my classmates had mentioned this store called “Spotlight” never heard of it. So one weekend, me and my mum headed over to our local Spotlight, only to find that they only sold upholstery fabric. I checked the list of recommended fabrics that my sewing teacher had given me, upholstery fabric was not on the list.
The second place we tried was a quilting shop. “This is more like it” I thought, so many colours and fabrics and prints. Yes, this was it. I selected a fabric only a child could stand. Turquoise background, with cartoon mice and turtles on it. Seriously, who designs these fabrics? I remember how much it cost too …. My mum was not impressed, ($50 per metre)
I went in on Monday, fabric pre-washed, and waltz into soft tech to display my beautiful fabric for my classmates. During the typical fabric show off contest, I discovered that the majority of my classmates had in fact purchased their fabric from Spotlight …. Turns out, there was an upstairs that sold apparel fabric, both me and my mum had clearly missed. I continued with soft tech into my final years of high school, as I knew that this is something that I wanted to pursue when I went onto university. My sewing teacher for my final years of sewing was best described as a bully. You know the type, enough said. And it was this teacher that failed me on a technicality in my bibliography, that led me to failing sewing and missing out on a scholarship.
That was one of the most heart wrenching moments of my life. To stumble at the last hurdle like that, it was truly the worst pain I’ve ever felt. Like being punched in the gut, the wind knocked out of you, the heat rising to your face. Awful. To have a plan for your future and be so sure of it, only for it to be taken out from under you, was a gut punch. And I don't mean to sound overly dramatic, because it really was a life changing event. I think it's worth saying that I went to a very high pressure school, it wasn’t built for creative types like me. It was all about ticking a box, and moving on. No development, no creative expression, just follow the rules and you’ll be fine, maybe.
Sewing, at its core, is about expression. Expression of self, expression of creativity. I felt none of that coming out of high school, I wanted to fall back in love with sewing for the love of sewing, I wanted to love sewing not as a form of academia, but as a hobby. Upon graduating, I did what everyone was thinking, but no one was doing. I took a gap year. The only student in my entire year group to do so, much to the disappointment of the principal, as a result, this dropped the year groups average from 100% university acceptance to 99.8% (a bragging right that my school was not going to let go without a fight) I was called into several meetings with the dean where I was repeatedly told that I would be throwing away my parents money tuition fees if I didn’t attend university, and that I was never going to get a job without a degree……
It’s easy to look back with hindsight and see how wrong he was, but, at the time I knew he was wrong, I knew that at 18. I knew that I was going to take a gap year, get some space, and figure out what I wanted, not what others wanted me to do.
I spent the summer decompressing my mind from being in the education system for the past 13 years and took a well deserved break. Entering my gap year, I wasn’t just going to mooch around the house. No. I had a plan. I was going to work my arse off, save enough to pay cash-in-hand for my first year of uni, find out where I wanted to study fashion design and make it happen, it was going to happen.
I think this is what they call a cliffhanger, there's so much more to tell you and I really want to do this justice, so I'm going to do part 2 so you can get the full story.