A Little Wander Down Memory Lane

My husband and I have never been "collectors."  (as long as you don't count fabric....but really that's "inventory" amiright?)  We don't have shelves full of souvenirs or memorabilia.  We designed our house 25 years ago intentionally with a minimum of storage space so we wouldn't be tempted to keep things that had out lived their usefulness.  And on the whole, it has worked.  (Can you hear the "but?")  BUT....even with our draconian approach to 'stuff' we still have managed to accumulate way too much of it!  Like many of you I'm sure, we have been wandering through our cupboards and storage bins and coming across interesting things.  Sometimes I remember why something made the cut to become 'precious' and other times....to be blunt about it... I don't know why some of it is still around!  As we think about consolidating into smaller spaces, I know I will need to make some decisions about what makes the trip to the new storage areas and what ends up in someone else's basement!  Some of the choices are easy, "what the heck is this and why is it the closet"  and some are more difficult, "awww, this was our son's favorite stuffed elephant."

Note annoying mouse hole....

One of the things that turned up in my rummaging was a tablecloth.  A gigantic tablecloth.  It arrived at some point when my husband was moving things from his childhood home in Wales to our home in Chicago.  It had been a wedding gift to his parents in 1951 and I'm not sure they ever had a table big enough to hold it!  The thing measured 100 inches square!!!!  It was a monster.  At some point during it's residence in my cupboard (I think it was when my boxes were being stored in the garage in California) a little mouse nibbled on the center lace motif.  Of course it was folded neatly so the mouse was able to get all four corners with one chew!  I am quite sure I swore and cried when I realized that it had been damaged during my watch.  It went back in it's box, this time with cedar chips, until I unearthed it a few weeks ago.  I realized that there was never going to be a table large enough in my house for the tablecloth, and it looked a lot like gorgeous linen fabric to me!

The last time my sister-in-law visited from Italy she asked if I could copy a dress that she really loved.  It was a straight forward loose fitting dress and she was very happy with the new one that I made.  I pulled out the pattern, knowing that she loves it and that it fits, and started moving it around the on the tablecloth/fabric to see how to get around the mouse holes and how to take advantage of the amazing embroidery and lace motifs.  I wasn't sure I could actually cut it up, but the mouse had already made a start for me, so I chopped away.

I placed the hem on the lovely worked edge of the cloth and the lace inset landed perfectly across the back and chest of the dress.  I matched up the sleeves so the lace danced all the way around the shoulders.  I gathered the sleeve hems into a 3/4 length cuff and bound the neck.  I am so pleased with how it turned out.  In fact I liked it so much I started laying out the pattern again to see if I could manage a dress for me too!

          

I think my sister-in-law will really like the dress and that it was once her Mom's tablecloth...awwww!

There wasn't enough lace real estate left that was not chewed so I focused on the embroidered corner pieces for my dress.  It took a bit of fussy cutting but I managed to get a pleasing arrangement.

I had a lot of trouble figuring out what to do with the neckline.   For me, it felt to high and the raglan seams made my shoulders look like I should try out for the Green Bay Packers!  

I thought maybe adding some of the lace would open it up...

Nope, it just competed with the embroidery...

I tried a lace yoke that I had scavenged from another top...talk about your line-backer look!

...Maybe an interesting collar?   ...Maybe, but not that one!

...OK, now we're getting somewhere...

Once I opened up the neckline, I really like the second version, almost as much as the first!

          

Did I mention that this was a gigantic tablecloth?  I couldn't let those other lovely corners go to waste.

          

After hauling that tablecloth across the ocean and back and forth from one side of the continent to the other and storing it in four different basements, it is finally covering something...or should I say, somebody.  I never knew my mother-in-law, she passed away before I met my husband, but he says she would like the dresses and the top and be glad that the tablecloth was finally being used.  I know I will definitely enjoy seeing it on a regular basis instead of once every 25 years or so.

P.S.  Here's another long ago item that was surfaced in the Marie-Kondo-purge....

My wedding  dress!  Yikes!  I couldn't resist...I had to see if I could still get into it.  The slips that filled out the skirt are long gone...

YES!  And I could still breath with it zipped up!  

Yes, I made it.  My husband loves to tell the story about how my mother and I spent a whole afternoon pinning in the hem and as I was gingerly taking it off, I dropped it to the floor without realizing that the cat had hawked up a hair ball exactly where the center front panel landed!  😩😩😤😱

I remade the skirt, removing the offending panel, and spent another long afternoon pinning.  If you notice the dark stain in the picture, it is not from the fur ball incident as it has come to be known, but from a glass of champagne that my husband dropped in my lap in the car on the way to our reception! 😲 Fortunately it didn't darken until many years later.

Here's the dress on the actual day...

OK, no wisecracks about the hairdo!  

Remember that my mother and I spent two days hemming that dang skirt.  It was perfect.  It was a perfect 1/8 inch off the floor!  It wasn't until the pictures came back that we realized that the church had put new carpet in a few weeks before our wedding and my shoes sank into the fluffy new pile causing the perfect hem to bunch up!  The best laid plans....

I'm sure there will be many more memory lane moments as we make our way through the cupboards.  Maybe hanging onto a few things isn't such a terrible idea...