Sewing Legacy – Dotted Swiss

My family went to Arizona recently to clean out my Granner’s house (since she passed away in November) and get it ready to sell. My mom came home with a cool bag full of Granner’s sewing creations. Granner was always a very stylish lady. In the 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s she sewed most of her outfits and they were often elaborate dresses with hat and gloves to match. Check her out:
Totally stylin! My sisters and I had fun oohing and aahing over the clothes my mom pulled from the bag. In fact, Meredith tried on a few and they looked super cute on her!
Among other treasures in the attic they found boxes of fabric, which my mom brought home for me to look through. Sadly, there weren’t too many cute ones. But I had a lot fun finding all her little post-its on the fabric noting “pre-washed”, etc. Of course all the fabric was dusty enough to warrant another wash. But I did find a few cute fabrics that I brought home with me. And yesterday I decided to make Lucy a dress from one of the fabrics. Here’s what I came up with:
The brown fabric is from Granner, the white fabric is from some old curtains we had in our bedroom, and the flower (which I purchased from the FIDM student store – a totally cool place!) reminds me of my Grandma Suman.
While Granner taught me to sew, Grandma Suman taught me to crochet. Rarely did you see her without yarn and hook in hand. She was always busy creating something and I’m sure this flower is something she could have made in 5 minutes.
While this dress isn’t too different from the rest of Lucy’s wardrobe, it’s special to me to know it has part of Granner’s creative style sewn in.
I hope I did her fabric the justice she would have wanted. It’s cool to think of the legacy of talents we pass on to our later generations. I’ll definitely have to teach Lucy to sew when she’s 10 or 11….and hopefully she’ll enjoy it!
The other fun thing about this dress: it was the first time I’ve sewn actual clothing and been able to put my label inside. It felt so official.
And seriously, how cute are they? I was trying to take pictures of Lucy but she kept asking for Owen to come sit with her. She sure loves her little brother. She wakes up every morning going, “Owen? Owen….” They are sweet little kids.

  1. 1) maymunah

    Hi could you please do a tutorial on how you made this dress I love it

  2. 2) Jacqueline phillips

    Yes. It’s so pretty. I can see my 3 granddaughters in it.

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