*BEST DRESSED WITH LOVE BY MOTHER

My mother was a skilled seamstress and tailor.  She could make anything.  Just about everything that I wore as a child and well into my teen years were made by my mother.  I never felt like my clothes had a homemade look.  In fact, I had a pretty good wardrobe that was as nice or, better looking, than my friends who got their clothes from the store. I wore beautiful dress coats, school clothes and formals.

When I got old enough to have an opinion about what I wore, my mother would take me to the local department stores where we'd look at the latest clothes for sale.  If I saw something that I liked, she'd take a good look at it and say "I can make this for a lot less.".  So the next stop would be the fabric store.  If we couldn't find a pattern to duplicate what was in the department store, mother would make her own.

For me, there were advantages to having an excellent seamstress for a mother.  When I hit junior high school, I still pretty small and clothes my size off the rack in a store would have been clothes for kid's in elementary school.  That wasn't too cool when you were trying to look like a teenager.  I wore age appropriate clothes in junior high thanks to the sewing skills of my mother.

Mother, Karen, Linda and Me - all in Easter outfits made by my Mother.

 Another advantage was my dolls were always well dressed.  Mother would make clothes for my dolls from the fabric left over from sewing projects.  In fact, more than once my dolls, or my sisters dolls, won "Best Dressed Doll" awards in the local county summer playground program.

The lilac dotted swiss dress that my mother made and then, unfortunately, ruined it when she spilled what she thought was a thumb sucking deterrent down the front of the dress.

 Because my mother or I chose the fabric for clothes that she made me, they were one of a kind.  It was unlikely that other girls my age would be wearing the exact same thing.  The style may be the same. But that was where any similarity ended.  When felt poodle skirts were the rage, I had one as well.  However, mine was specific for me.  Mother made it when I turned 8. The skirt was red felt with a white Reindeer instead of a poodle.  Mother drew the pattern for the reindeer and then cut it out of white felt.  She also made a matching vest. 

My mother also sewed for people outside the family.  Her ability to cut out a pattern and have fabric left over sometimes meant that I'd get an outfit when she made something for someone outside the immediate family.  This only proved a problem when she made a jumper and blouse for her adult cousin.  Her cousin was also a teacher who happened to teach at my elementary school.  More than once, we both showed up at school in matching outfits since mother had sewn me a jumper and blouse from the left over fabric.