apparel
Rememories: Big Granny's Butterfly Dress
I love textiles.
Especially vintage. My grandmother had a cabinet that spanned an entire length of wall. She kept all of her sewing fabrics there. I use to love digging through it for all different sorts of cloth. There were a few woolens and some plaids, laundered flour sacks and calicoes, as well as some weird synthetics that must have been on clearance. But it really didn't matter what it was, I just loved digging through and touching each little neatly, folded bundle.
She was the one who taught me how to sew. I learned one summer when she started me on pillowcases made from recycled sackcloth. This was before recycling was cool. My great-grandmother also lived with her and Grandpa. It was she who showed me how to embroider. I added little-embroidered daisies with French-knot centers to the edges of my pillowcases. I think that is where and when my love for fabrics started.
One of my favorite "rememories" is coming to the farm one summer during the milo harvest. For some reason, Mom didn't pack the right play clothes so Big Granny (that is what we called her because my great-grandmother was Little Granny) reached into her fabric cabinet and snatched out a wide, ombre-striped cotton.
Oh, it was lovely in a 1960s sort of way. Broad purple stripes wept into pinks and oranges on a crisp, white seersucker ground.
I can still see it like yesterday.
Well, Big Granny was a 'get 'er done' kinda woman; a no-nonsense, 'grab the chicken by the neck and have it for supper' kind of woman and right before my very eyes, she took the fabric and with a magicians deftness quickly measure me up and down with it. Then with a yank, she ripped it in two (sans sheers) and then went wham bam at her sewing machine, and before I knew it, I'm donning a new play dress in less than five minutes.
If that wasn't amazing in and of itself, wham bam again and she made another one for my sister Hedy! So there we stood dreamily in our beautiful new butterfly dresses.
Hedy and I looked like a cross between something Jacob gifted Joseph and something from the Merry Prankster's Further bus.As I stood there admiring the butterfly sleeves with my arms outstretched, Big Granny was already loaded up in the ol pickup, banging on the horn beckoning Margie's "city girls" to come and git ta work in the fields. I wish I still had my butterfly dress.
I still wish I had my Big Granny.
Here's a little paper doll I created to help cement the rememory. I hope you enjoy.
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Shari Lidji
May 16, 2016
I love your story Cheryl….and I can see your bold striped dresses now. No time to dwell on design decisions……just great instincts and the desire to outfit her grandkids. One of my grandmothers did all of the things I love to do today. She died when I was just 11…..I couldn’t fully appreciate her talent. Like you, I wish I could know her now. I think we’d have a blast together. My grandmothers name was Big Mama. She was about 4’10".