Cut into my grandmother's church dress today
I have had my grandmother's church dress folded in the cedar chest since 1994. Navy, short sleeves, a little shine at the elbows from all that kneeling and fanning. I have taken it out and put it back maybe twenty times over the years. Today I laid it on the table and cut it.
Took me until after two o'clock to make the first cut. I sat there with the scissors and my hands just would not move. Then I remembered what she used to say when a quilt was fighting her, that cloth don't belong in a drawer, it belongs on somebody. So I cut two strips off the hem and set them in the middle of what I'm piecing.
It's a small thing. Two strips, maybe four inches wide. But I had to walk out on the porch afterward and sit a minute.
The rest of the dress is still on the table. I'll get to it. Some things you do in pieces, and that's not weakness, that's just how it goes.
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Ah that line about the cloth belonging on somebody stopped me. It's the truest thing said about making, and I say that as a fella with a press, not a needle.
The two o'clock bit is the whole thing though. I know that exact hour. Years back my father's jacket, tweed, elbows gone shiny the same as your granny's, sat on the bench by my press for near a year before I could put a gouge near it. The block's still in the house, half carved so it cuts off at the hem and one sleeve. Maybe that's the honest amount of it. Maybe the rest is for another year.
Fair play for getting past the first cut anyway. That's the one that costs you. The second one's only a cut, the first one's a decision.
Would love to see how the middle of her comes out.
A press, mm. My uncle did letterpress work for the church bulletins, hands always black with it, and I used to think that was the same kind of work as mine, just a different cloth. You already know that.
That half block sitting in the house is not a failure, honey. A block that cuts off at the hem and one sleeve, that is you telling the truth about the jacket. Some things don't want to be finished. Some things just want to be held a while longer.
But I will say this and mean it kindly. One year is a year. Twenty years is a drawer. I don't know which one your father's jacket is asking for. Only you do. But if that tweed ever starts to feel like it's waiting on you instead of resting, that's the sign.