sarah in nyc

Probably fifteen years ago someone on an early proto-blog posted directions for turning a man's dress shirt into a woman's peasant shirt.  I kept the link because I thought that the idea was brilliant and because I wanted to be able to give the author of that blog credit. Soon after I began following the directions on that blog the blog disappeared so I am unable to properly give credit to the source of this idea. Fifteen years ago, my daughter loved wearing peasant blouses. I made a few for her out of beautiful shirts from the local thrift store. She liked her blouses with a gathered low neck, a gathered waist, and a puffed sleeve. I had purchased a couple of extra shirts that were awaiting transformation but my daughter has moved on in her desire for peasant blouses. I needed an over shirt to work out in and claimed one of the shirts. The shirt is made out of delicious cotton. I no longer which high-end shirt maker made the shirt. This is another shirt that I ...

My mother’s birthday is today. My mother does not need stuff. She owns a life time’s worth of stuff. What my mother does need is a few short sleeved shirts. After a lifetime of wearing shirt waist dresses, for the past few years my mother has been wearing pants. For me, this is a shocking development. Since 1959 there is exactly one photo of my mother wearing pants (posed with my sisters and their new snow shovels in the back yard – I was not yet born,and was not even the proverbial twinkle in the eye). This new sartorial life has called for a new item in my mother’s life, tops. My mother seems to have winter weight shirts.  She does need some summer weight shirts. I made her three shirts as a birthday gift. I bought a size large t-shirt to use as a pattern. I  chose a red and white seersucker as the fabric for the first shirt. My mother loves seersucker and owned many seersucker shirtwaist dresses over the years. I also owned several as a child. When i bought the seer...