My Mother's Dresses

So, I've been spending time at work (see post below) reading Erin's Dress a Day blog (her May 14th post to be exact). And thinking about my own memories of dresses and my mother.



Let's preface this vignette by saying that I love dresses, I always have. Maybe I'll blog about my memories of my first dresses, but not today. I love wearing dresses now. Okay, skirts mostly, but I haven't sewn in awhile. Maybe some day I'll have a sewing room, or something in the realm of furniture so that I won't have to sew on the floor. Right now, my sewing quarters are located in the basement of my old and scary house. I could think of at least three other places in the house I'd rather sew including my disgusting kitchen floor and my claustrophobically small office/library/junk storage room. But the basement is where I will be.



Anyway, on to the vignette. I remember a dress in my mother's closet when I was little that used to intrigue me. It was peach and long and flow-y with lace on the neck. I think the color would have looked wonderful on my mother, and I always wondered why she never wore it. I found out much much later (hey, sometimes I'm slow, remember how it took me 12 years to get the tarapaper joke?) that it was a bridesmaid dress from her little sister's wedding. She wore it shortly after having me. In fact, there is a picture in my scrapbook of me as a baby held by my mother with my older sister sitting next to me with a corsage on her wrist. On second thought, maybe my sister was holding me, and my mother wasn't even in said picture, but then again, there's got to be a picture like that somewhere. The facts in the case remain, however, that it was the bridesmaid's dress, and I was a baby. I put two and two together (about the fact that it was a bridesmaid's dress and the wedding and all) because of that picture (whatever one it is) and the wedding pictures of my aunts wedding that my grandma has hung on the wall of her basement. I saw my mom in the pretty dress and discovered where she got it. The question of why she never wore it still haunted me. I didn't realize at the time that my mom had very few occasions to wear fancy dresses, what with raising us and all. And also, my mom isn't really into the whole dressing up thing like I am, and would have been terribly uncomfortable in the dress out somewhere.



As far as other dresses go, I remember sitting on a pew with my mother at church on Sundays and paying very close attention to her dresses. I liked the patterns that were harder to figure out. I would trace the paisley and try to find the order in the design. I also knew which dresses were her favorites because she wore them a lot. I also remember sitting on her lap and touching the underside of her chin. It was my favorite place to touch because it was so soft, like silk soft. I'm sure my mother thought I was pointing out a double chin she was worried about, but I just liked the texture.



Ohh, childhood.