The first sewing project I distinctly remember was making a pair of mittens for my American Girl doll. I use the term mittens generously – they lacked thumbs. This was followed by a slew of barbie dresses, skirts and tops, which were really just tubes. I remember being baffled by the concept of sewing a pair of pants, the idea that there was a front, back and multiple seams was really beyond me. I looked on in awe at my Mother, Grandmother, and Aunt who could sew entire outfits. Despite my lack of skill I did have a love of crafting and sewing – and a tendency of getting messy:
Paint, nom nom. What?!?
I also had a penchant for playing dress-up, and a general love of wearing costumes. As soon as I was old enough I became one of those ‘plan your Halloween costume in the summer’ sort of people. When I was nine years old my Aunt made me a Genie costume (alla ‘I dream of’), which I had meticously planned for several months. I was a purple Genie of course – because I didn’t like the color pink and I didn’t want to be the evil one…
Conveniently, as my desire to create my own costumes grew, I began to gain some mastery over the art of sewing. I learned how to follow patterns, and finally figured out how to make pants! I wore a school uniform, so I channeled most of my creative energy into costumes (which was probably for the best). It wasn’t long before I started throwing my own Halloween parties, in fact I loved costumes so much I made my friends wear them at my Halloween and Birthday parties. Though none of my friends were quite as into it as I was, they all did humor me.
I wore quite the range of homemade costumes throughout Secondary School; from princesses to villains and few strange things in between, but I would never have considered them cosplay (I’m pretty sure I had never even heard that word):
A super blurry power ranger, in case you couldn’t guess.
Glinda, the good witch, from the musical Wicked (sort of, I hadn’t seen it I just really wanted to) and not the movie (people were kind of confused).
Yeah, it seemed like a good idea that the time.
Thankfully I have improved a fair amount…
