​Robin, the bride, was referred by a friend in a I-think-you’re-maybe-the-only-one-who-can-take-this-on kind of way. The bride’s mother wore the dress in the ’80’s, but someone had worn it before. There is mystery around the provenance — maybe it came from an antique store, maybe from an aunt — but the bride’s mother isn’t here to tell the full story, which is why Robin wanted to wear the dress, the closest she could be to her mother on the day she married her partner, Jess.

​The sheer cotton batiste and eyelet lace dress had been home made, perhaps in rural Indiana, with stitches so small I couldn’t get the tip of my seam ripper beneath, with areas so fragile they blew apart in my hands. I saw the dress in February, before it was sent away for cleaning and restoration* — it was yellowed, stained and had been suspended on a wire hanger for decades, partially covered in plastic.

I worked with the dress after it returned to Alaska from a cleaner in California. According to the bride, the professionals began with dry cleaning, then a wet cleaning process with Orvus paste, then a gentle bleach soak over several days, checking at critical points to ensure the fibers weren’t stretching or tearing. The transformation was stunning, but it took time.

My part of the project required properly fitting the dress, textile stabilization and updated finishing. Gathers at the waist became pleats. Metal hooks and eyes at the center back became hand made loops and silk covered buttons. I replaced the skirt lining. I repaired areas of stretched or ripped lace by hand. I trimmed away excess. I steamed, I pressed, and thought about the woman who first made this dress, the women who had worn it since, the woman who would wear it again. Connected, I became another link in a line of of makers and women crossing thresholds.

​And this is the difference between working on wedding gowns in your 20’s as a seamstress/sewer/pattern maker/shopgirl/designer/assistant/or whatever else I was referred to, and working on a wedding gown as a mid-40’s artist and mother. My energy and intent had nothing to do with proving myself, and everything to do with respect, curiosity and creating the most supportive, most nurturing experience I could for another woman — for 2 women, actually — during a life moment when the experience should be beautiful and easy for a couple, but often feels overwhelming.
​
It’s also the difference between choosing to work with a vintage gown or making all new. Old cloth holds stories, secrets. It’s always my preference.

During the process, I was able to share discoveries about Robin’s mother -- she had a 24-inch waist when she got married, and had likely been losing weight since the seams at the hip had been taken in 3 times…the final time by hand, maybe stitched at the last minute, maybe the morning of the wedding. These are small things, small curiosities. But I wanted Robin to know that part of the story. ​

The rest of the dance belongs to her and Jess.

If you are interested in having a vintage wedding gown cleaned and/or restored, here are some resources:

National Gown — www.nationalgown.com

American Institute for Conservation -- www.conservation-us.org
See pdf:  "Guide to Caring for Your Treasures" 

List of Conservators (this list was originally provided by the Anchorage Museum, although they don't endorse anyone in particular. Refer to the above website to find a conservator near you):
​

• Margaret Geiss-Mooney, Petaluma, CA, (tel) 707-763-8694, (email) meg@textileconservator.com
• Denise Krieger Migdail, San Francisco, CA, (415) 931-1085, (email) dmigdail@asianart.org
• Yadin Larochette, Santa Monica, CA, (tel) 310-808-7979, (email) yadinl@gmail.com
• Susan Schmalz, Los Angeles, CA, (tel) 323-857-6169, (email) sschmalz@lacma.org​
• Cara Varnell, Long Beach, CA, (tel) 562-209-1039, (email) carav@earthlink.net
• Nancy Wyatt, Tacoma, WA, (tel) 253-572-5863, (email) ncwyatt@aol.com​

Don’t:

• store in plastic or “sealed” boxes from the dry cleaner
• store hanging on a hangar
• store in a cedar chest or against wood of any kind without some kind of barrier. Wood is acidic.

Do:

• have the dress professionally cleaned before storing, even if it appears clean. Body oil, lotions, perfumes and perspiration will emerge as yellow stains over time. 
• fill the bodice and sleeves with acid-free tissue paper and gently fold the skirt around more tissue, resulting in a loose bundle. *Amendment: Margaret Geiss-Mooney, one of the conservators listed above, contacted me with this advice: "Use fabric/yardage/sheets to stuff out sleeves and bodice (don’t use paper tissue as the tissue becomes acidic over time and, in the event of a disaster involving water, becomes paper pulp which is very difficult to remove) ... The fabric used to stuff out sleeves/bodice can also be re-used by just rinsing in the washing machine."  Thank you Margaret!
• wrap the bundle in clean sheets or unbleached muslin and store in a lignin-free box, off the floor or away from possible leaking pipes or dusty ventilation ducts.
• unwrap the dress once a year and re-position the folds before storing again. (okay, okay, my wedding gown is stored this way, but have I EVER taken it out of the acid free box since 1993? No. I probably should have a little look-see).​

​

The 15th boxes of mystery.  ​(Part of the Inheritance Project).

Box of mystery. (The catalyst for the Inheritance Project...have I really been working on this for two years?)

​

My first job in high school began as an internship at a small shop in Nevada that made costumes, wedding gowns and casino uniforms. I fell in love with a Brother single needle industrial machine whose push-button start up and whining motor stood my arm hair on end. I was also smitten with the gravity fed industrial steam iron (I once forgot to turn it off and left it smoldering on the ironing board...overnight). Loading cones and rethreading a 5-thread serger with its zig-zagging internal paths became as navigable as learning to drive a car -- which happened at around the same time -- and for a girl whose father worked with loud equipment and flying sparks all day, yet kept his daughters safe from this, it was a way to harness industrial energy and wield power over a machine at a moment in life when a young woman is vulnerable to dismissing her own capabilities.  

That was all the fun stuff (except maybe the casino uniforms), but the bread and butter work in that shop were the alterations. I've hemmed more Carole Little knit pants from Macy's than I care to count, and learned to make way more small talk in a fitting room than any other 17-year old I've ever met (I'm still not great at it, but I can probably still make a half-naked lady feel pretty comfortable. Wow, except that came out wrong).

To rip into another person's worn clothing has an intimacy rivaled by actually making clothing and fitting a person's body. I've found used tissues in pockets (into the garbage), money and jewelry and keys (into the small return baggie) and seams filled with dust, lint and scales of skin. I've been gagged by cologne and perfume and cigarette smoke. A woman once delivered several vests to be copied and remade, only to discover that her male cat had sprayed on them just that morning. She tried to leave them anyway, and when I explained there was no way I could hand them over to the woman who does the alterations (me) before dry cleaning (her), she snorted and craned her neck to see who this picky "alterations girl" in the back room might be.

During the 12 years I was in the clothing industry, doing everything from alterations, to running a commercial cutter, to fitting custom gowns, to sample sewing PVC raincoats/stretch jeans/metallic halter tops for 14-year olds, to marching to the bank to try and deposit paychecks (9 of those bounced at one factory), to making patterns, to crying on the bus, to finally being mentored by a master tailor for 4 years in the '90s (more crying), the constant hum for me was the intimacy of cloth. And the years that this intimacy was absent (factory work), it bothered me that clothing was so disposable. Later in my career, when returning to custom made wedding gowns, I thought I'd be creating garments that would be revered.

Some were. Most of the clients were lovely women. And I try really hard to remember their smiles, vast embraces and impossibly smooth shoulders.

But the fond memories are often overshadowed by mothers telling daughters how fat they looked, or girls bad mouthing the size of an absent friend's ring ("...you know that marriage won't last... "), or bridesmaids who (I'm not kidding) pushed each other out of the way to vie for the mirrored walls, the ruined gowns returned for fixing ("... we got such a great photo in the hotel fountain!"). It's comical now. But for a girl from a small town, brought up to sew and respect the work of the hand, it was devastating. My last boss, a mentor and man I respected and loved like a father, called me "Provincial." The hardest part was realizing my own lack of skill when it came to matching wits with princesses.

For Pete's sake, who even knew that was a thing?
​

All this to say: alterations don't bother me. Neither does the prospect of incredibly time-consuming work.
(And I steer clear of Princesses).
​

Girl Story and Girl Story #3 have been accepted into Focus: Fiber 2016 at Kent State University Museum. If you are in Ohio between February 12 and July 3, 2016 I highly encourage you to check out the exhibition (and send pictures please, because I won't get down there for this one, unfortunately).
​

​One of the notations in the exhibition agreement stated, "Velcro is preferred but not mandatory." A few months ago, I met with the textile curator at the Anchorage Museum and she had mentioned this very thing in terms of displaying tapestries and textile work.

Velcro.

​So I ripped off the sleeves.
​

Adding velcro to a piece and the accompanying mounting bar is easily reversible, protects the fabric and will eliminate curling and bulging at the bottom edge once installed by allowing for minuscule adjustments at the top until the piece hangs straight across the bottom. 

So while I didn't have to make this alteration to two pieces of artwork before shipping, I chose to.
​

If making clothing for people taught me anything, it's this: there is no one way. Every body is different, every mind is different.

Every show is different.

(But darn it if male cat pee is always the same).

I'd love to hear your comments about successful mounting/hanging techniques. I'd also love to hear what went terribly wrong so we can all learn from each other.

This post is filed under the How To category in the side bar. There are a few other how to posts available there, although I'll never walk you through anything by blah, blah, yaddah-yaddah because there are lots of other verbose bloggers out there breaking sewing steps down. I know you're on your game, so I show you lots of pictures instead. 

And I tell some stories.

Maybe you remember a post from last summer, a sun-drenched afternoon on the deck with my girl, a mystery box from a friend in Upstate New York, a bunch of pointy bras, seamed vintage stockings and a couple of spying boys?  

It is mid fall now and another box has come.

This time, from Sweden.
​

 
My friend Boel sent it after contacting me to ask if I'd be interested in embroideries and handmade linens from the local Pentecostal church's second-hand shop. I'm always game for this so I sent a list of ideas and colors, she responded with photos. On the day Boel visited the church (her name is pronounced BOO-elle), she said the place was filled with refugees shopping for their new homes. 

Of course, old Swedish handwork is not useful for these families. They have no connection to this history; their own wounded history is as young as yesterday. They need shoes and pots and winter coats. They need space and shelters that angry people won't set on fire.

In the aisles of that church shop roamed the convergence of so many things: 
Lives lived and histories abandoned.
The humanity of making and saving and surviving.
​The hoarding, the discarding. 

Rescue.
​Rebirth.

When Boel told the church volunteers she was shipping linens to an Alaskan artist of Swedish descent, they gave her an enormous discount. These ladies had taken the time to remove crocheted edging from worn bedding because this part was still good. The handwork was still beautiful and valued.
​

 
It's been raining here and all the trees have lost their leaves. The mornings are dark when the children go to school. My son slipped on black ice in the driveway not 20 minutes ago and hurt his hand. Anchorage is the same latitude as Stockholm, so I can imagine what it is like in Sweden right now; the darkness and the cold inhospitable to people not used to that northern climate. This week I listened to a Syrian doctor burst into tears in an interview on the radio. The man hadn't slept in four days and kept apologizing for weeping. I was in my studio stitching by hand and didn't realized how hard I was crying until the cat came meowing down the stairs to check on me. This doctor said all he could think about were the people he couldn't help if he took time to rest. He said his country was disappearing.

Sometimes we find rusted needles still embedded in old embroideries. Like someone put the work down and just walked away. At one point, the maker had hope and inspiration and will.
​
​But there are a million things that dissolve hope.

  
I'm not going to create art about the world's refugees. I'm not going to pretend I have any answers or throw money in a direction that isn't helpful. But I am going to worry for them and continue telling my children stories about what is happening in the world so they understand that having to go to school or to swimming lessons is a privilege, not a torture, and certainly not everyone's right. That somewhere, somebody's art supplies and books and special clothes and animals all got left behind because their family's wellbeing was more important.

And because we can't directly rescue people today, we will rescue some unwanted things -- items that are the remnants of humanity's need to make and do and mark, remnants of resilience and will.

​And we'll hold stories in our hearts. And we'll revere history. And mend what we can.

​We'll work hard to be kind in this world.
​

​*     *     *

​
My friend, Boel Werner, is an artist and a writer. We met in Los Angeles in 2004 at the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators' annual summer conference and somehow never disappeared from one another's lives. We have one of her books about a pair of red pants that comes to life one night, escapes out the window and flies into the world to have an adventure. Flygarbyxorna is one of our family favorites. I'd hate to ever leave it behind.

But I would.

​I would grab my children and I would flee.
​

One of the first quilts I ever made was from a block pattern called the "Mississippi Wheel of Fortune." It was paper pieced, fussy cut, long arm quilted and before I gave it away as a wedding gift, it won a big purple ribbon at the Alaska State Fair in 2006 and I had a hard time retrieving it afterwards because I had a brand new baby, and at that time in my life, I had a hard time doing anything. 

It was a period when I thought I'd probably never do anything well ever again.

My cousins from Sweden visited soon after the baby was born. When we showed them the quilt and the ribbon, someone commented, "That's beautiful, but this is the same kind of ribbon they give the pigs. You should have had a nicer ribbon." 

Huh.

Maybe so.

I'm thinking about this quilt right now because it's State Fair time. 
Because my thoughts are with the woman I gave it to.
Because I still have two sister pillows kicking around that need retiring. 

In the process of trying to find pictures of this original quilt, now 9 years later, I ran across images of cats who are no longer living.

Of a bedroom I no longer sleep in.

Of a baby who is now a little ... no ... a big boy.
Of a man who has a lot more grey hair.

Of marriages that lasted, or didn't last, and others that will always need mending and ongoing care. 
This quilt is gone from my life. All I'm left with are patterns dutifully followed and plans that drastically changed, all bits and scraps and the fragility of life.

A wheel.

The ultimate prize.

For related posts, please visit the blog category Motherhood and/or Children.

In 1978, I came home from Mrs. Patterson's 2nd grade class and informed my mother that I was going to audition for the Newcastle Elementary School's talent show. 

Tap. 
Solo performance.

I would need my 45 record of "The Boogie Woogie," new black gros grain ribbons for my tap shoes, and oh, yes, a dance skirt for my blue leotard.

And then I went and practiced for 2 weeks on an MDF board in front of the full length mirror on my parents' closet door.

I had no history of performance or bravery or even talent for that matter, but I did have a history of vomiting every morning before school because I was such a strung out bundle of nerves. It was my mother's familiarity with this latter history that raised eyebrows at the idea of me up on a stage. Alone. Tap dancing. But she didn't say a word.

Sometimes something's just in you and it's got to come out.

I still don't know where that bravery came from. And I don't know where it came from in the 3rd grade (Tap. Solo performance ... can't remember the music) or in the 4th grade (Disco. Solo performance ...  to Rick Dees' Disco Duck). 

And then I never danced on a stage ever again. I can't even tell you why (although my choice of music may have had something to do with it), but I can tell you that I felt bad for many years thinking I should have pursued tap dancing even though I didn't want to anymore (Disco? Hell, yes).

But the way I see it now is that I had something in me and I got it out. And then I was done.

And that's enough. That is a success. Let me repeat this idea because it's kind of a foreign one: 

          It. Is. Enough.

For those of us raised or semi-raised with the idea that you do something for years until you get really good at it and then you just hit cruise control while you continue to do it -- sometimes with much misery, it's really hard to let go of that thing and move on. But listen, there's a whole lot of boogie-woogie out in the world, and there is even more trying to come out of us. So, here's my question to you -- what's your boogie-woogie? Do you know? Are you letting it out? 

Or, alternatively, are you so terrified of moving on, of becoming a one-hit wonder that you're milking that one boogie-woogie to the point of it becoming a mushy-gushy-boogie ... loogie? 

Think about it for a second, then do this: 

Show me your boogie-woogie. 
I'll post it here. 
Seriously. 
Show me your best boogie-woogie -- what you absolutely had to get out of you, even if it was only once -- with a description of what this meant at the time or how it formed your artistic journey. (Send the image to amy@amymeissner.com, subject "boogie-woogie," with links, your name, all that good stuff).

Keep in mind that I have small children and a husband so do not send images of body parts, orifices or smut. I may be banned from blogging and emailing (like, forever) and that's not playing nice for anyone. We can all be totally edgy and still classy at the same time.

Besides, we're all about putting our best foot forward around here. Even if we only do it once.

The bigger point is that you do it.

Hey. If you like this kind of post, you'll probably also like the posts "Amateur" and "Finer," too.