Wondering

I don't even think about not finding fabric; I've accumulated so much over the years, I can simply raid the stash in my closet. But seriously, with so many online sources, we can find good buys on fabric. I order some sometimes and have never been disappointed. Emily

Same here. I really don't think it is going to be a problem and yes I think folks will always sew clothing - esp. for kids!

-Irene

Oh, Pat! What a shame. ((((((PAT))))))

I've lived in a 'fabric dersert' for over 20 years. I love internet and postal shopping, and I shop madly for fabrics if I ever visit somewhere that has a decent fabric shop! I have lots of fabric contacts here in the UK as I sew for others as well as myself and the family, so I never really feel deprived.

Meant to ask, have you managed to get to Abingdon yet, or is that for later in the year? I mentioned to you that there was an excellent fabric shop there.

I'm sorry that you aren't able to sew any more. I keep saying that when the time comes where I can't sew, it's time for me to be moving on elsewhere. Sewing is my sanity. But....what do you mean "ever become popular again"?? I didn't know it had ever gone out!! I started sewing with both parents when I was about 5 or 6, and I have kept doing it ever since then. For a while it was just htings I wanted but couldn't find anywhere else, now it's not only clothing for myself (just finished my version of a 'Duro' dress) but also for my 2 children as well. They are both petite, skinny bundles of energy, so store bought clothing NEVER fits them!! If it fits in the waist, it's too short. If it fits in the length, the waist is huge on them...so, I make nearly all of DDs clothing, and select things for DS (mostly sweats, pajamas, and some shirts from fabrics that *he* picks out). This summer, we will have our 13yo niece living with us, and I fully plan on introducing her to sewing.....become popular again?? In my house, it's the only thing that ever STAYS popular!! lol

Larisa

Not yet. Been hibernating! ;)

Honestly, I don't think it will be popular in this country again in the foreseeable future, because more and more families are hardcore dual-career families, and not only are children left in the lurch at times (although not always), but there is oftentimes not enough time after everybody's social activities and entertainment activities to cook meals from scratch, do one's own housekeeping, etc., much less sew one's own clothes.

Add to that the facts that (A) Many traditional home economics activities became obsolete with the advent of the so-called women's liberation movement, (B) planned obsolescence and having many things has become more popular to many people than having a few things of quality, and (C) many, if not most people are fad-driven these days and have to have the latest things, and I think sewing for one's self will ever become popular again nationwide. Crafting stuff, maybe. But not making one's own or one's own family's clothing.

But I do think there will continue to be a market for people to do custom clothing as a business, because that's where I think the affluent people of this country will head to if they want custom work (of course, many of them will want custom clothing at Chinese slave wages because of (B) above).

You can tell because, for example, when I was young, every department store, including Sears, Roebuck and J. C. Penney, had a fabric department in it -- even in my teeny-tiny town, the only department store (a local, family-owned store) had a fabric department -- and our shopping mall had TWO fabric stores, and the dime stores (now obsolete or else replaced with modern-day drug stores that have everything in them) had fabric also. Someone had to be doing a lot of business with fabric stores to keep all of them in business. ANd now there are pitifully few, of course -- because there is not enough traffic to keep them around.

Same here - I have enough fabric to open my own store (giggle) - according to DH

I also order supplies online from time to time.

I sew clothing for DH and myself - shirts mostly, occasionally ties. I sew clothing for children as gifts when the occasion arises. I like the process.

Diana from Upstate NY

Gosh - remember the days. That's how it was where I grew up in California until about 20 years ago. - sigh -

Diana in Upstate NY

I doubt it. You can buy cheap clothes for less than the cost of the fabric. If you have time to sew your family's clothes, you probably can't afford the materials; if you can afford the materials, you probably don't have time to sew.

I wish my daughter had taken up my "hobby" of sewing - my mother and grandmother taught me. My son used to sew some, but as a teenager wouldn't even think about it now. I'm not giving up on him though. Both kids were tall and skinning growing up too, so have sewn many clothes for them over the years and a couple of prom dresses. My daughter thought it was great that she could have a one of a kind dress - fit well and no worry about another girl having the same dress. I now sew for myself mostly - from pants and jackets to dresses - I'm spoiled by the better fit (I, too am thin) and friends are always amazed when I tell them I made something myself.

Also live in a rural area with NO fabric shops - 80 miles to the nearest Hancocks. Try to hit a JoAnns when I travel and just beginning to order on-line. Hate to see all the fabric stores disappearing!

Kristi

When I was growing up, it was assumed that every female child would learn to make simple garments. Referring to sewing as a "hobby" still sounds odd to me, as if one made a "hobby" of brushing one's teeth.

That level of "popular" will never happen again. Already in the fifties, when I was still a teenager, the saying was "You don't save any money by making your own clothes, but you get better clothes."

Later there was a long drought, when only the "quilters"[1] kept the supply lines open. To this day, a quilting thimble is easier to find than a plain sewing thimble -- I vividly recall asking for a common thimble in an otherwise superbly-equipped fabric store, and being unable to make the clerk comprehend what I was asking for. (In fairness, he was a sub, and not the proprietor.)

Then the Internet came along, it became possible to buy fabrics no matter where you live, and some of us old housewives came out of hibernation. But nobody is going to sew unless he can make better clothing than what he can buy -- note the prolog to David Coffin's book, where he says (approximately) that he learned to sew because he had a taste for thousand-dollar shirts and could not afford them.

Making a shirt of the quality you could buy at Wal-Mart is going to cost you more than a good Carhart shirt would, so you might as well buy the Carhart.

So only those who are particularly interested in sewing or fashion are going to learn, and many of those are going to give up or never start if they can't find instruction that will give them the skill to make better-than-Walmart clothing right off the bat. A long apprenticeship spent making house dresses isn't going to happen -- if only because nobody wears housedresses.

On the other hand, the custom-clothing factory with the network of measuring booths that we were supposed to have along about now hasn't been heard from since the early 1990's. And I suppose that we *can't* have measuring booths until computers settle down and stop switching to incompatible operating systems more often than new styles come out of Paris. Even if measuring booths were as cheap as computers -- and they can't be; "silicon is cheap, but iron is expensive" -- it's going to cost a Whole Bunch to put a measuring booth within commuting distance of every American. Even putting one in every major city is going to be a large enough investment that the stockholders are going to take a very dim view of the CEO who put them at risk of having to trash them and start over at frequent intervals.

So people who aren't exactly the same size and shape as the mannequins that mass-produced clothing is designed on are going to have some incentive to learn how to sew.

Another development: my mother always knew someone who would make a dress for you if you had more money than time -- I got my wedding dress that way. And when I was in college (early 1960's) there was a boy who took the fabric that a trio had bought intending to cobble matching skirts for a performance and made beautiful sleeveless dresses for them. Pity I can't remember his name; I'd like to Google and see whether he grew up to be a designer.

But all the time I was keeping house, I never once heard of anyone who sewed for money.

I presume that dressmakers were there and I just didn't search for them -- but today I know, just from walking around, of at least three storefront custom sewing shops. (Though at least one of them says only "alterations.") And this is in a town so small that when I want to ride my bike from a place east of the city to a place near the western city limit, I'm apt to ride around a lake instead of through the town because going straight makes it too short a trip to make it worth my while to pin up my pants legs.

So *professional* custom sewing seems to be becoming more popular again, after a long downturn that started when clothing factories began to acquire sewing machines.

Joy Beeson

[1] "quilters" is in quotes because it refers to people who make patchwork and applique' artworks even when they don't quilt their artworks.

In my area there used to be formal wear and other shops that offered alterations inside their stores. Now that these are gone, one stand- alone business offering alterations and custom sewing has been started to fill the needs previously taken care of inside other stores.

I'm not sure that it is really becoming more popular, perhaps more visible.

--Betsy

Gosh, me too! In Southern California, you could go into Sears, Penneys, Woolworth, and Yardage Town, all in the same mall! And they all had fabric! I remember ordering fabric from the Penney's catalog, simply because the store didn't have enough of what I wanted. Oh yes, TG&Y! That was another one!

Now I buy fabric online--mostly, although there is a discount fabric warehouse 50 miles from me. I subscribe to sample clubs; love getting those little slips of fabric in the mail! Haven't been too disappointed, and if for some rare chance I am, I call the company to tell them that their fabric didn't look like the website or was not of the quality they mentioned. Then they are all too willing to make me happy. In some ways it's better than going into the store, but in others it's not because you can't touch the fabric ahead of time.

I think the reason why the fabric stores have gone away is because our world is now so full of technology. It's more important to own a Blackberry than a sewing machine, I feel. And people don't have the time because of their various responsiblities. Yet my 34 year old nephew who has spent over 15 years in the Air Force, owns a sewing machine and can sew. Love that guy!

When my son was little, (he's 35 now), I sewed for him all the time. Everytime I bought a pattern, I would figure out from the picture on the pattern envelope how the item would be assembled, then checked the sewing instructions to see if I was correct. It was a fun game. Everything from coming up with Halloween costumes to making suits for church. If I had grandchildren, I'd still do it. Now I sew for myself. And I make a few things around the house, like roman shades and such.

You are missing out on a whole category of sewing hobbyists. There are lots of people out there who enjoy sewing, but refuse to try to make their own clothes because "nothing I make ever fits, anyway" or "nothing I make looks good when I finish it", but they will spend many hours making such things as table runners, bags of various kinds, wall hangings etc. and derive a great deal of satisfaction from these projects.

Which is why many of us on this board have invested in pattern drafting software. It really does help, once you get used to it. Of course, no software will make a plus-size woman look like the emaciated waif on the pattern envelope, so one also needs to learn to decipher which styles are appropriate and which colors flatter.

Olwyn Mary in New Orleans.

Oh dear, and I put that down as one of my not-so-good purchases! :-(

'Tis true I did buy Dollwear Designer, but I didn't find the prog interface at all intuitive. It's very fully featured and sits inside a Windoze interface, but it doesn't follow the general Windoze conventions for common actions. The program writer seems to have set about producing his own interface options so common key presses and mouse clicks don't always do what you think they should, IYSWIM. And yes, I did try and try and try to get used to the eccentricities of the program but gave up in the end.

What I do occasionally use is a proper CAD engineering drafting program when I'm trying to modify or scale pattern pieces up or down. I guess that's my engineering background showing through.....

:-))

I bought Wild Ginger on recommendation of a number of people here whose opinions I trusted, but there are several others on the market. I think Threads magazine did a comparison some time back, perhaps someone else here can get you the link. Wild Ginger does have a demo you can download and play with, and it is basically a CAD program, although there are so many "click" choices I haven't had to go into that yet - which is just as well, since I am self taught on the computer, and only know those things I have been forced to learn in order to make it do what I need.

Olwyn Mary in New Orleans.