If anyone would have foretold me round about Easter time that I'd be spending my summer making 11 costumes for a bunch of kids all different shapes and sizes, I'd have needed resuscitation, I'd have laughed so hard.
What causes an otherwise fairly sane person to volunteer something like that, without prior knowledge or experience? Call it temporary insanity, that's what I do - it makes me feel that little bit better. It all seemed so simple at the time. I'll give you the elements of the equation as they were presented to me at the time. Young Diva attends a stage school on a regular basis, has done since she was knee-high to a grasshopper. The school wanted to put on a dance number to a catchy tune by a singer I happen to like. The school at that time had no regular dressmaker. I am a keen amateur dressmaker. Young Diva would look deadly cute in the proposed outfit. Voilà! Can you see the ingredients of madness assembling? Well, I failed to spot them. At the time, anyway. You see, it was a pretty simple costume, adaptable to various aged children… A ruffled skirt. No problem. A T-shirt top, with some adornment added. Easy peasy. A bolero jacket, with puff sleeves. Pretty simple. Actually, pretty and simple. Why not add matching bows in the hair? Oh yeah! Cute. Oh, and those thingies round the legs and feet, to 'fake' boots. Spats, they're called. What is that saying, about the venom being in the tail? I remember thumbing through that costume sample book with nostalgia now.
Oh, how blissfully ignorant I was, only a matter of 6 months ago. How rashly that volunteering thing was done. Don't get me wrong, I didn't jump in there straight away. Good heavens no, I hesitated and hummed and hahed. But let's face it, my flesh and blood would be stuck if someone didn't take on this task, we'd already trawled the memory banks for anyone having shown in the previous year or two that they were capable of plying a needle (even, or maybe especially, if said needle was of a machine variety) and the chosen costume had such a high cute factor. Fatal! Lector caveat - reader beware, BEWARE I say!
How was I to know that with kids, age bears no relation whatsoever to size - no matter what clothes manufacturers pretend to believe? Could I have foreseen that 11 pairs of spats would have to be cut individually to size? No. I feel quite confident in stating that none of that was my fault, since until that time I had not actually made any clothing (not counting a little sun hat) for a child other than my own, and other than simple stuff. Of course, several pitfall conditions contributed to the crucible of the process.
There was the fact that the fabric from which I was to cut both puff sleeves (a little hint in that term, for those unfamiliar with dress or costume terms: 'puff' essentially means 'fabric-rich') and spats, was it. There was no extra to be purchased. What I had was what I got. Basta. No more.
A quick calculation showed that it could be done, just. That seems such a simple sentence, doesn't it? But it's absolutely crowded with mantraps. There's the word 'quick', for a start. Never, never make the mistake of making quick calculations on a supply of limited quantity. Then 'calculation', a whopper of a misnomer in itself. 'Could be done' is too horrible to touch - let's not go there. But the worst, definitely, is that 'just'. Because I had totally overlooked the fact that where Young Diva may be tall for her age, she's also incredibly slender. In fact, she's the thinnest of the lot. And she's always had a waist. And although I groan and blush now at the admission, I made the mistake of taking her and the biggest child in the group for working out the 'average' child - times 11, of course. Now that Young Diva has reached the ripe age of eight, I of all people should know a) that there is no such thing as an 'average' child, even in size, and b) that she has always been the Uncertainty Principle Personified. She was described to us once as 'a singular child', and never was that more true than when it came to comparing her to these other 10 …
Of course there are mitigating circumstances to my temporary insanity, or the way I ended up spending this year's summer. Even though I don't like admitting to it, because with hindsight it's so obvious, I totally overlooked that 2001 was always going to be an exceptionally busy year for The Hart, Mr. Stage Manager and Young Diva. There was Young Diva's First Holy Communion, for a start. See the combination straight away? Festive occasion - dressmaker mother? Yup. Oh, believe me, she looked absolutely adorable. But it was the result of a lot of hours behind the sewing table (actually, dining room table - we were consigned to eating respectively in the kitchen and lounge for the duration). My own outfit never got finished, though. "Never mind", I thought, "There'll be another occasion soon enough." And of course that occasion was really just round the corner: a mere month after Young Diva's big event, my parents' Golden Wedding anniversary occurred. With bells on. Abroad. Yup. I got totally bogged down, and my own outfit never got finished again. Why? Well, because among other things I was doing these 11 costumes, you see… In fact, we've only eaten at that dining room table (well, at a cleared corner of it) a few times in the past half-year.
I'll be the first one to admit that, when the bigger girls saw the end result, they oohed! and aahed! at how gorgeous the costume was. Balance that against the knowledge that every time I stood up and went anywhere, it was in the uncomfortable knowledge that bits of various-coloured thread were sticking to my clothing - usually the posterior parts. On the other hand, I've become an absolute wiz at changing bobbins. I mean, when you're working with 3 colours thread, in what I'm told is 6 possible combinations, you do an awful lot of bobbin-whipping-out. And practice makes perfect, they say. Well, perfect at what you practise, anyway. And when the group performed the dance for the first time last week, all togged out, they did look absolutely smashing. But is the end always justified by the means, I ask you?
Oh, the agony of that first cut when you know that the material you have on the table will run inexorably out, leaving you about half-a-child short, if you don't squeeze out every little pattern piece as economically as possible. I broke dressmakers' rules, I ignored the grain and cut any which way - I still ended up having to cut the toe off the spat pattern as a separate piece, which made for 88 pieces of fabric to be joined, for those spats alone… Never before have I had such tiny scraps left over - if anything else ever needs cutting out of that blue, it'll take a minor miracle of jigsaw puzzle joinery!
Oh, the agony of trying to work out whether my original fabric calculations were in fact any good.
Oh, the agony of trying to combine flimsy gingham with sturdy twill in one small garment.
Oh, the agony of having to line all those blasted jackets with the slipperiest satin in the world.
Oh, the agony of fitting the first jacket, and finding it 1" too narrow.
Oh, the agony of fitting the first ruffled skirt, and finding it 2" too long - either side of the ruffle line.
Oh, the agony of fitting the first pair of spats, and finding them too tight. As well as 6 more pairs.
Oh, the agony of fitting the last pair of (patchwork - sic!) spats, and finding them way too loose!
Oh, the agony of completing the group within sight of the deadline, and then being told 3 of the little darlings will be withdrawing from the dance at the end of the term - after wearing said costume once, or in the case of one child who injured her foot, never at all.
In fact, I've had a lot of agony in the past months. That's why I haven't told our amateur dramatic society wardrobe mistress and her assistant that I am now skilled at making costumes. What, volunteer, ME? You must be kidding!
the Hart