HOW NOT TO MAKE A DRESS Elizabeth Chater How Not to Make a Dress by Elizabeth Chater Smashwords Edition Published by Chater Publishing Originally published in The Open Door Published by the YMCA Wives’ Club of Los Angeles Fall 1969 Copyright 1969 by Elizabeth Chater All rights reserved. Republished by permission. Cover image by Maestriadiz Thank you for downloading this free ebook. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied or distributed for commercial or noncommercial purposes. Chater Publishing would like to thank Jerry Chater for transcribing the following document. For more information about the amazing life of Elizabeth Chater, please visit our website: Elizabethchater.com For more books from Chater Publishing, please visit: Chater Publishing Table of Contents How Not to Make a Dress About the Author HOW NOT TO MAKE A DRESS Any adult of reasonable intelligence can learn to sew, I told myself. The sewing machine is, after all, a mere mechanical contrivance. Press the appropriate levers and it must act in accordance with immutable laws. It has neither malign cunning nor the will to resist. You will please forget, I said, that gruesome little piece you read about the Machines coming alive and taking over the world. You have been given this sewing machine and you are going to Make a Dress. Go now and purchase cloth and thread and everything which pertains to the creation of a costume. My first mistake was in going to an off-trail discount house. There was a certain lack of polish evident in the manner of the young salesgirl to whom I addressed myself. “I wish to make a dress,” I began nervously. “Well, bully for you,” she said. “What else is new?” “You do have materials for sale, do you not?” I inquired with a hint of hauteur. “Are you some kind of nut? All this stuff on the shelves ain’t canned goods, whatta ya want?” It seemed hardly the occasion to admit that I’d thought of a dress that would rustle as softly as a willow tree in a breeze and glow like a field of buttercups, so I said, “I’d like some yellow chiffon.” “How many yards?” She reached down a bolt of cloth. A good question. “About thirty,” I hazarded. “Take the bolt,” she advised. “You get a discount that way.” When I got the material home and spread it out on the dining room table, I was appalled. Yellow chiffon flowed from the table to the floor in endless billows. There was enough for ten dresses. Hesitantly I took up the scissors and prepared to Cut Out. I had not bought a pattern, having observed that they are not only flimsy but maddeningly intricate; besides, I wanted this dress to be an original creation. The yards of chiffon overwhelmed me. I didn’t know where to begin. Courage, Elizabeth! I said, and squaring my shoulders, plunged the scissors into the cloth. After a few minutes, I found I had cut an oddly-shaped piece which would do very nicely as a draped bodice. I had also cut my second-best linen tablecloth, which I had neglected to remove from the table. After that, though, things went better. I cut dozens of skirt panels, narrower at the top than the bottom, so the skirt would be romantically full and soft. I cut gaily, madly, rather more, I fear, with the flair of a d’Artagnan than a Dior. The scissors flashed and gleamed; golden panels fluttered from the table in a springtime glory. When at last I came to the end of the bolt, I was faced with the thing I had been dreading: the necessity of sewing the pieces together. The machine fought me at every step. It knew I was afraid of it. It snarled its threads and puckered the cloth. It darted its needle-tongue spitefully at my fingers. It chewed perversely at the panels, gathering one up into tucks while stretching the other so that the ends seldom came out even. When I did get the material even, I found that the machine had run out of thread a yard or so back. At length there was only the neck to do. I stitched yellow velvet ribbon very neatly and carefully around the neckline. The machine purred and hummed; material flowed smoothly from under its foot; the task was finished like magic. I looked with kinder eyes on the machine. Perhaps I had been hasty in my judgment. Only one thing was wrong. When I tried on the dress, I couldn’t get my head through the hole. I solved that one by cutting the neck away two inches at the front and sixteen deeper at the back. At last the dress was finished. It was time to Try On. The skirt formed a short train at the front which would have been very pretty if I had wanted to back away from someone, but was a little awkward for ordinary locomotion. However the back of the skirt compensated by hiking up almost to my knees. I did have the idea of wearing the dress back to front, but this would have brought the sixteen-inch decolletage to the fore, a problem for anyone but an Ancient Cretan woman. I finally called the Goodwill Industries. “Could you use thirty-two yards of chiffon dust cloths?” I asked. “And one almost new sewing machine?” The Goodwill people could. They think I’m some kind of a nut, but they like me. About the Author Elizabeth Chater was the author of more than 24 novels and countless short stories. She received a B.A. from the University of British Columbia and an M.A. from San Diego State University, and joined the faculty of the latter in 1963 where she began a lifelong friendship with science fiction author Greg Bear. She was honored with The Distinguished Teacher award in 1969, and was awarded Outstanding Professor of the Year in 1977. After receiving her Professor Emeritus, she embarked on a new career as a novelist with Richard Curtis as her agent. In the 1950s and 60s she published short stories in Fantastic Universe Magazine and The Saint Mystery Magazine, and she won the Publisher’s Weekly short story contest in 1975. She then published 22 romance novels over an 8 year period. She also wrote under the pen names Lee Chater, Lee Chaytor, and Lisa Moore. For more information, please visit http://www.elizabethchater.com.