Welcome to sewing circle.
"Well, the hem needs to be raised. That's for sure."
"We could do a jagged cut around the bottom but I don't think it's the right fabric for that."
"Or the right cut."
"Right."
"We could cut it on a slant so it comes up higher on one side."
"Maybe."
Sounds normal enough, doesn't it? Keep listening.
"What if we just raise it up six inches and cut a big slit into the side?"
"Oooh. That'd be easy enough."
"What are you wearing under this? Fishnets?"
"Thigh-highs or full-length?"
"Do you have any garters?"
"Well, yes, but they're attached to corset."
"Even better."
"Oooh. Very nice!"
"And for what occasion did we buy this little number?"
"Shut up."
"No, see, the skirt hem has to be higher than that if you want the garters to show. Let me see you bend over."
"Does anybody know how these things snap on to the stockings?"
"I do. Hold still. And pardon my reach."
Halloween marches on. The yard is decorated, though it's a modest effort for me this year. All my energy has been spent here in this room once a week. My sewing guild has been working on pirate costumes for over a month. Corsets are ready. Swords are strapped on to appropriately tacky belts. There are little bits of leather and metal all over my sewing room. We're down to finishing touches now. Detail work.
"Red!"
"Black!"
"No, red! Trust me, Shannon. It's sexier."
"I disagree. Black ones will blend in with the elastic straps and you won't know they're there at all. That's sexier."
"We need a third opinion."
"I'm going to have to see it if I can make a fair decision."
"Fine."
Our standard discussions of fabric texture and stitch tension have. . . well. . . changed tone a little. We'll get back to modesty next month when we begin the real work on the Victorian ball gowns for Christmas. Now we're stuffing, lacing, and strapping each other into custom-made pirate gear. It's T-4 days till Halloween. We've been waiting for this all year. Planning for it since spring. Sewing for it since summer.
Halloween is the culmination of my year. A touch of superstition, a dash of old school paganism, and a pound of unfettered imagination. Perfect. I shop for costume patterns the way other women shop for shoes. I think I probably spend more time pretending I'm in a different time period or world than I do actually existing in my own. I have a dresser full of costumes that spills out into boxes and bags. The other day I was walking up to a pizza place to meet some friends for lunch. They giggled as I approached in a cloak. "What?! It's raining!" I said defensively. It was just a little cloak.
Yesterday, while I was in the Halloween section at Target, I overheard a family's debate. "Well, you can have this one, or we can go look at Walmart, but I'm not driving back out here either way," the mother said to the little boy holding the spider-man costume. "No, you can't have that one. I told you. No more than $15."
I remember just about every halloween costume I've ever had down to the grey mousey from when I was three. I ran around the house wiggly my butt so much to twitch my tail that it fell off and Mom had to sew it back on. I don't think I've had more than one or two store-bought costumes in all my life. The days before Halloween always meant Mom hunched over the sewing machine turning me into a fairy or a witch or a dragon. My mother is an excellent seamstress. She learned from her mother and in turn taught me everything I know. She's always encouraged my imagination. I never heard, "No, you can't be dragon. That's too hard." Not once. I remember I was a tube of toothpaste one year. Mom sewed my tube and put a lampshade on my head for a cap and Dad built me a gigantic toothbrush out of balsa wood and scrub brush. Another year I had a Big Foot costume for school (Dad helped me build the feet out of cardboard) and in the evening I was a fairy princess with big pink tutu and a magic wand. It wasn't just Halloween either. I was forever running around the house in some silly get-up out of season, staging plays and festivals in the backyard. Huh. I bet my parents thought I grow out that at some point.
Or maybe they knew better.
Now I spend at least a few hours every week at my sewing machine and I've got a whole bunch of looney friends that are right there with me, every Wednesday night. Weekly play time for the Thimbelina Sewing Guild. We create whole worlds stitch by stitch. You can't sew with a group of women every week and not become close. Blood, sweat, and tears -- sewing is a very passionate hobby. And it's a good thing we're close. Otherwise, hitching up a friend's skirt and snapping her garters to her stockings for her just might be awkward.
"Don't you think it's a little slutty?"
"It's supposed to be slutty. You're a pirate. When Mary Reed and Anne Bonny were tried for piracy the only thing that keep them from hanging is that they were both pregnant from boffing the captain and half the crew."
"I know, but I do have to wear this to work you know."
"It'll be okay. We'll want to slice that slit up a little higher before nightfall though.
"Are you sure my butt doesn't show?"
"You're going to wear nice underwear, right?"
"Very funny."
"I thought so."