Dressmaking Makes Me Happy

The first time I ever touched a sewing machine was when I was about 11. At my secondary school there was a rotation of four subjects: Cooking, Sewing, Woodwork and Computers (later to be called Home Economics, Textile Science, Craft Design Technology and Information Technology). We did roughly one term of each of these.
First up for 7R (my form, year 7, Raleigh house) was Woodwork. I really enjoyed that. I made a little car (okay, everyone made a little car…) and it had wheels everything. Great fun!
IT was next, given that I went on to do a degree in Artificial Intelligence (that’s programming, not robotics) then you’ll guess I liked IT.
Next term we did cooking. I didn’t enjoy cooking. I was rubbish at it too. My jam didn’t set, my pies were like rocks. Although my chocolate log was a success and the rum-truffles went down very well (real rum!) I barely scraped a C!
Finally we did Textiles. We had one of the scariest teachers in the world! (She did turn out to be quite nice when I hadn’t done some homework because my sister had been run over…) over three years of textiles classes, I made a wallet (which was a bit rubbish) a handbag (ditto) and a cushion. The cushion was pretty good; I only got rid of it recently!
After that, I pretty much didn’t bother with the whole sewing machine stuff. After university (about 9 years later) I hand-sewed a costume for Leon and myself for the Pub Treasure Hunt. Then, for my birthday that year, Leon’s parents bought me perhaps the most surprising gift I have ever received: a sewing machine. It’s been in its box quite a bit…
Still, since the arrival of the sewing machine, I have made three successful ball dresses, five captain scarlet costumes, and evil-vampire-willow corset, Moulin rouge outfit (and Flic/Jaq also used it) and six cushions. If we ever get a scanner, you'll be able to see these on my Flikr page. I’m thinking about setting up a page to showcase my designs on (since I don’t use patterns, I make my own) but that will probably have to wait until I have a digital camera.