Exploring Fashion Design

As mentioned before, I spent two weeks of my December break in 2021 living across the country to pick up the art of creating clothes from my grandma. I wasn't really sure what I was getting into, but I knew that it would be a cool thing to learn and well... someone in the family should inherit the knowledge and keep it alive. It's a great skill to have and it made me feel capable. To be able to create something with my bare hands and know I don't need to rely on machines or somebody else to do it for me. It's like learning to cook. Learning to sew and tailor clothes is an ability that allows you to remain in control of the things you have. Maybe food at restaurants isn't that bad, but being able to mix up your own special flavour is nice once in awhile. Similarly, sure you can buy industrial made clothes, but being able to make your own shirt? Add your own pockets? Tailor make it to fit you and just you exactly? It just makes it special, you know?

Lots of people thought I was "wasting" my time learning a skill that no one needed anymore and thought I was amusing at the same time for trying. The truth is, I always thought fashion design was cool, to have clothes you design and make on your own is just such a satisfying idea. Plus, how could I pass up the chance to learn how to add pockets to all my clothes?! Oh and also, bonus, my grandma only has an ancient sewing machine, so I'll get to learn how to use it too. So I thought, why not, let me dive in with a few sketches and ideas and see where this little adventure takes me.

The very first thing my grandma did was to pull out all her old notes and try to teach me how to read them. And when I say old, I mean reallyyyyyy old. As in, yellow, crinkly, fading ink type of old. Which means older than me by at least 3 times type of old. Yeah. That old. Needless to say, I couldn't really tell what was going on, especially because they were copied down by my grandma herself who never been to school, cannot read and cannot write, so... It was a ride trying to guess what each ancient Chinese character meant and asking my grandma every 5 seconds if this is what she meant (she would go, "I don't know? Is that what I meant? I can't really read this, I just copied it down.")

(A little note from hindsight me! These "formulas" are actually drawn to scale. Yes, I had a whole confusion confusion with my grandma in Chinese about how it is "same but smaller" to get that, but I'm just gonna put that out there because my painful conversation cannot go to waste!!!!) (Also, I told you these were ancient... if you think they are awful now, they were worse before my grandma put in an effort to iron them straight. Clearly, that effort didn't get very far considering these were folded up who knows where for decades... Still, these are ancient treasures! If you can decipher them that is XD)

All in all, it was kind of hilarious in hindsight. Eventually, we decided maybe that wasn't really getting anywhere so we just moved on to the next important skill, which is measuring the person which you are making clothes for!

This is literally the part that I thought was so professional, because in movies, the professional tailor would always just make you stand there, whip out a measuring tape and mumble to themselves as they poke and prod you then voila, they bustle off to grab cloth and before you know it, a dress made just to fit you yay! So yeah, I was so excited to learn how to do all these measurements and convert it into information you used for making clothes (coz apparently there's a formula). Apparently, to make super fitting clothes, you are supposed to take a measurement around your body every 4 inches, but my grandma says and I kind of quote, "You kids these days don't wear such fitting clothes anymore, it's too old fashioned. Just do a slightly broad measurement and cut the cloth a straight line down so you get the baggy clothes that you young people like." But she said it in Hokkien in a way that sounded so matter-of-fact I honestly had to take a moment to recover because wow she knows. But I mean, I guess my grandma is the type that saw Princess Diana on TV a couple decades ago and decided that her dress is a timeless design and proceeded to recreate it so... She's cool XD

So anyway, after you take measurements (ring around your shoulder, wider ring around your bicep for sleeves, between the ends of the bones of your shoulders, your chest, your waist, your hip, the length from the bone at the base of your neck all the way to your tail bone, your thighs, the length from your waist to your knees, knees to ankles etc) you write them all down and decide, okay what do you want to make now and which measurements would you need? Of course, as I said already, the more fitting you want it to be, the more measurements you have to take, but in this case, since I am clearly of the younger generation (thanks Ah Ma) I am totally fine with baggier clothes, so honestly, bigger is fine, smaller is a no no.

Since I am a total beginner and will probably screw up something, my grandma figured the safest and easiest thing for me to start making (not really) was a standard shirt. You know, sleeves, round collar and all. I then proceeded to take out The Secret Formula by my grandma to look at the "template" for a standard shirt. The thing is, the basis for clothes pretty much stays the same. The main pieces are the same. You just change up the measurements to make things longer or shorter, broader or more fitting, with pleats or without, but essentially for a shirt, you need to cut out a front, a back and your sleeves. Just saying, I spent quite awhile trying to figure out which was the front and back and how it all comes together at the end, coz for some reason, seamstresses like to measure and cut in quarters over folded cloth (okay the reason is so that it will be the same measurement and you don't have to measure so many times, but still. My tiny, new-to-sewing brain could not comprehend that at first.) Eventually though, I managed to make all the calculations for the measurements I needed (dividing all my measurements by 4 in INCHES when I spent my whole life studying in CM just made me feel like I deserve to have failed Math... Like, I didn't even know inches were divided by 8 and not 10?! Absolute confuzzlement...)

The next step was then to draw out the template on a huge piece of spare paper (newspaper or mahjong paper, whatever you please, just big paper) because you don't really want to draw on your cloth directly and mess up. Also, you could keep that template for future shirts you want to make because that size is exactly yours! AND you can take that paper measurement and move it around your cloth to figure out cutting which piece where would save you the most cloth. So, you grab your long ruler, as in, super long 80cm type of ruler and different coloured pencils to start drawing the template. You need different colours so you don't mess up which are your guiding lines and which ones are the actual lines you need to cut later XD Also, you need to know which is the front and the back. The neckline for the back is higher, the back of the shirt where you attach the sleeves are also wider, and so it means the front of the sleeves themselves are longer. I don't really know why either... I guess because you are more likely to move your arms forward than behind and you kind of want that extra room? Also, the sleeves have a bit of a curve to them (which makes them a devil to sew up but) that helps you attach it to the actual shirt itself so you know, it rounds around your shoulders.

Anyway, after allllll the sketching, you position the paper onto you folder cloth (the fold would become the centre line of your shirt! Which makes sense, coz people dont really have a sew-line down the front of your shirt or the back... if you are doing button ups then I guess you can fold it still but cut your cloth at the edge of the cloth so you end up with two pieces instead of one. Does this make sense? I only figured out all the folding like a week into my time there when my grandma tried to teach me to make an A-line skirt and I kept trying to figure out why we have three pieces of cloth, not two or four, coz the front is one piece and the back is two pieces which connects with a zip.) So back to positioning your paper template / sketch. You gotta align it so the edges where you want to sew them together has about half an inch of extra cloth (which is for you to sew together later duh) but don't make the rookie mistake I almost made, which was to add an extra half an inch to the folded edge which would eventually become the centre line of the shirt. No, we do not need an extra half an inch there coz no sewing-together will be done there! When you align everything, you pin it down and sketch using washable pencil or special tailor chalk the outline of the extra half an inch you want to cut out around the template (or if you are super experienced like my grandma, you just go ahead and cut it, but you know, I'm new, I'm confused and I still think half an inch is more like 1 inch so... yeah, I sketch so my grandma can check for me.)

Now that you finallyyyyyy have all the pieces you need, you can get around to actually putting them together. Clearly, your girl here has a super uphill battle, because not only have I not completely comprehended the system of inches yet (mind you, I was still trying to converse with my grandma about this whole process in a horrific mix of Chinese and Hokkien and the occasional English word) I now have to figure out how an ancient sewing machine worked. Heck, I didn't even know how to thread it, much less get it working ._. Like, just look at it! It has a wheel and a stepping paddle thing and the whole intricate weave-your-thread-through-here-up-here-down-here-through-this-then-down-here-and-through-this thing...

And the coordination to actually get it running? Please, I need an extra hand and maybe a sense of tempo XD if you step out of beat with the machine, you end up stopping the momentum and tangling up all the thread because you mess up the mechanics and it starts sewing backwards instead. It's kind of like swinging a swing I guess, or like pushing your friend which is already swinging. If you get it wrong, you just jolt them, but when you get it right, it goes really smooth until you realise, "Oh crackers. I need to stop. HELP!" Yeah.. it was a problem... Also, fun fact, I was too concentrated on getting it to move and not accidentally stab my fingers with the needle to actually focus on whether I was actually sewing in a straight line or not. Which basically means, I messed up a LOT and wasted a lot of thread. Oh and also "sewed" a long stretch before I realised, "Wait. The thread ran out like 50 stitches ago. Oops..." So yeah, the first try was a huge mess and my grandma was just magically so patient with this dumb grandchild of hers, it's a miracle she hasn't thrown down the needle and gave up halfway, especially since I spent a lot of time being all, "Sorry wait, I don't get what you just said. You mean this???"

Eventually though, I did somehow manage to piece together the whole shirt in one day. I mean, I took three tries (per sleeve) to sew it on right and the round collar turned out more like a square collar, but you know, for a first try, it wasn't that awful. I did learn that I was disastrous at sewing curves though. Like, did you know the sewing machine eats your cloth?! It literally pulls the cloth so if you don't pay attention and pull back you end up with one longer and one shorter end, which happened to me wayyyyy more times than I would have liked. I literally fought for my life with that cloth-eating devil of a machine ._. Plus, it tends to pull your cloth straight which is horrendous if you want to sew curves, coz if you feed the cloth in straight, your cloth comes OUT straight and you do not want a straight sleeve. No no no, you need it to curve around your shoulder! It took me a really long time to figure this out coz my grandma kept telling me, “No no, you’re doing it wrong. You want it curved. Round. You need to pull.”

Turns out, I was just pulling the wrong cloth this whole while (you pull the bottom piece not the top!) and not turning it enough *sigh * I swear I really battled that ancient thing so ferociously. Still, I guess I had a shirt! It was a mini success, but not great one because I did end up with a square collar… (P.S. photo credits my proud/excited grandma XD)

Also, when my grandma was trying to get me to sew up the edges (you gotta fold them over twice and sew them up so they don’t fray. And you need to sew reallyyyy close to the edge where you folded them, otherwise it will just escape and fray anyway and all your efforts will be for naught. Which happened to me. Multiple times. Don’t laugh. But anyway) that was when she realised, this child can’t sew in a straight line. Oh gosh, it’s worse than I thought!!!! Which isn’t even an exaggeration. I sewed out of the cloth, I sewed into the cloth, I sewed in zigzag, squiggly lines, anything but a straight line down with an even spacing from the edge. In my defence though, it really is hard! I mean, the machine is just chompchompchomping down on your cloth and eating it up and the needle is sharp and the wheel is turning and you’re trying to focus on your feet so you don’t step out of time and make the machine reverse and mess up the thread and so many things going on at once. It’s totally not my fault that I, as a beginner, was entirely overwhelmed okay. I suppose my grandma’s biggest concern was me stabbing my own fingers, but eventually it became more like, “How am I going to teach this child to make clothes if she can’t even use this machine?!”

So that meant the next day, she dumped me a piece of spare cloth, drew a bunch of curves on it and told me, “I’m going out. You sew along these lines until I’m back.” And that, was how I managed to get myself sewing homework on the second day ._. That was also the day I realised, oh crackers, I really can’t sew along the lines. It sounds and looks so easy BUT IT’S NOT. I used up the whole roll of thread and then some more invisible ones and still. The crisscross-y-ness of my work is just painful to look at. I am embarrassed to be called a seamstress’s granddaughter * sigh * you can take a look for yourself. Here.

(Past Me was apparently too embarrassed to take an official picture so I guess you get a cropped screenshot of one of my timelapses... This is definitely not its worst stage. The overlapping thing? It happened. A LOT. You can kinda peek this cloth in the picture above of the whole sewing machine! You can't see the mess there though hehe)

After that, my grandma basically downgraded me to reallyyyyy the simplest thing she could get me to make. Pants. More specifically, shorts. Those straight cut with a rubber band type. The template sketching was pretty easy (apart from the fact that it was in quarters) since my grandma cut me some slack (no pun intended) by letting me do a straight waistband. Typically pants should have a higher waistband at the back so the front dips down (because butts exist) but she kinda figured I can’t be trusted with complicated things, so I get to live with poofy pants * shrugs* the next step was just to fold the cloth over, pin down your template and cut out your two quarters so you have two pieces. One for each leg. The fold line would be the side of your pants and the edges would piece together to make the middle line later. Somehow, my grandma managed to dig up a piece of old cloth with a funky design for me to use. She said it was because it was a stiffer material so the machine wouldn’t pull it so much and it would be easier to control since it doesn’t wiggle around so much, but I think it’s also mostly because the design was too funky for her and she would never use it XD

Still, she was right though, it was much easier to sew and I managed to get all my straight lines pretty straight! There was a pro tip but I didn’t actually learn it until later. Basically, to get these really straight and even lines along the edge of your cloth, you just gotta make use of the machine. It has this little needle “leg” thing to hold the needle and guide your cloth in (okay, it’s probably not called a leg, but that’s the word my grandma used and I’m just going to call it that) and that leg is a perfect width such that if you align it to the edge of your cloth, voila, you will sew just close enough, but not too close so that if you shake a little it goes way out! Genius right? Okay you probably have no idea what I’m talking about. Let me show you!

See? It’s pretty neat. Anyway, at this point, all I had left to do after piecing everything up would be to sew up the edges and fold down an extra inch or so of the waistband so there would be this little pocket of space to insert the rubber. So long as you don’t accidentally sew up the pant-legs * ahem * (not that I did. I almost. But I didn’t) then you’re good!

One baggy pair of funky shorts done on day 2! I was honestly pretty impressed with myself and I think my grandma was too, so she decided, it’s time for me to upgrade! And I kid you not, I went from easiest thing to fancy clothes ._.

I think my making-clothes-is-so-exciting! vibe was starting to rub off on my grandma and she was really excited for the next project. She knew I was going to work at an office downtown after my two week stay with her so she was wayyy ahead and was already all, “We can make you a set of office wear! With a vest and a skirt and everything!” And lemme just say, you might not think it’s a good idea to let an 80+ year old dress you, but my grandma is still pretty hot on fashion sense! She designed and made dresses and office wear for my mum and her sisters wayyy back in the day and she totally hasn’t lost her touch! Honestly, if she were educated and had the monetary means, she definitely would have made an amazing fashion designer. And she was so excited about it! In fact, she was already grabbing the paper and pencil and sketching and being like, “See, we can make this round here. You know, round? Like this?” and I was still kinda out of it, so I was all confused for a hot minute until I grabbed the pencil and did this:

(My grandma in blue and me in red)

“You mean like this??” * scribbles* “Also, can I have puffy sleeves? I like puffy sleeves!” “Yeah we can add puffy sleeves, but you might want to make that rounder. This vest would be short so it looks good and then we can add a skirt below-” (and at this point I had to interrupt, with POCKETS?”) “Yes, with pockets if you want. But it has to be slim cut and just above your knees so you look young and not old fashioned.” So basically we schemed for a bit and we were both kinda hyped up. Me mostly because I was finally learning how to make pockets!!!! My moment has arrivedddddddd! And my grandma mostly I think because I was finally getting somewhere XD

In short, it was totally cool to upgrade so quickly and actually start making something fancy, especially since we had these bales and bales and balesssss of vibrant red cloth so we could make a matching set and mess up coz you know, we had lots of cloth. The measurements were all there so the sketching was pretty okay, but that was when everything started getting confusing because. Expert Seamstress Grandma Mode got activated ._.

We started with the A-line skirt and did some fancy measurements since my grandma wanted to make a skirt that fit the waist then flared out a little at the bottom which meant you needed to cut the cloth with a bit more of a curve to it at the base (which also meant sewing up the fraying edges was an absolute butt). That part got me a bit confused but it was pretty okay in general I guess. The zip was a little confuzzling though. Did you know, you need to change the little leg thingy of the sewing machine just so you can sew on the zip? That’s coz the zip is pretty crunchy and has a bit of thickness to it so if you try to sew it on without a one sided leg, it’s basically impossible. It’s pretty cool actually! And did you know, when you sew on zips, you gotta pull extra cloth over it so that when you actually zip up, you can hide the zip? It’s this cool thing I found out because of my sewing adventure so now when I see random strangers on the train or something my brain will be like, “oh gosh, her zip is not done right. I can SEE the shiny zip! Either the seamstress was an amateur or the dress is tight on her so it pulls the cloth.” And I mentioned it to my friend once and she looked at me weird like, what?? But I guess that’s just how it is when you know weird things. It’s like how my grandma sometimes looks at my jacket and goes, “That button is fake.” And she knows it doesn’t button up and is just sewn on because she just knows how the mechanics and design of an actual button should be. Isn’t that just so cool?? Being an expert on odd things is kind of like having an inside joke XD

Anyway, not to sidetrack, back to me putting together that skirt - I learnt how to do a basic pleat! You know that little sewn line that helps the flare of your skirt. There’s actually a formula! When you sketch it out, it should be 1 inch wide and 4 inches long. Which makes it a little like a pointy triangle, like this:

(Excuse the bad picture quality, it was raining heavily, the lighting sucked and my camera was half broken... but see the pointy triangle at the top near the waist line? Yeah that's the soon to be pleat!)

When you sew, you bring the two edges together so the fold is on the middle line, that way the width of the top would be “shorter” than the bottom of the cloth when you’re done. Also, pro tip, always sew from the fat base of the triangle down to the tip of the triangle and leave a little extra thread so it doesn’t unravel. Turns out, after I got the hang of these, I love sewing these pleats (fine maybe it’s just because it’s easy) but it’s just so satisfying! OH YEAH! I forgot to mention before, when you pin down your template, before you cut out your cloth, you gotta use carbon paper and a roller to print all your guiding lines down onto your cloth so you know where to align things! You gotta match the lines on your cloth and pin them up before you sew so you don’t end up losing all the measurements you worked so hard on before. Most times I forget to print the pleat triangles and have to go back and add it in later hehe still, they were fun to do.

All was fine and dandy until I reached the part where I had to sew up the edges of the skirt, which, as I said, were curved. And you know how awful I was at sewing things curved… plus, it has to be near the edge… I struggled so much (my grandma was constantly going, “It went out again?!” or “No no this is too wide, you need to be near the edge of the skirt!”) that at one point my grandma started worrying that the red thread would run out because I had to redo it that many times, so this was also the point where she finally thought about teaching me the trick of aligning the needle to the edge of the cloth. Things went smoother after that, but not by much… Still, I guess it was pretty manageable. The thing that reallyyyyyy killed me though was The Pockets. Oh gosh…

Even in theory, the pockets were hard. You have to sew them back to front or inside out or something (honestly, I still don’t really know how they work, I need to go back for more classes) and you have to cut them from spare material. In this case, it was a different material because the red cloth I was using was too thick and the pocket would be bulky so my grandma got out this nice silky orange fabric and I was so excited until I realised, oh my gosh, silky material runs like mad in this machine. It totally eats it up and then the thing squiggles around so much I keep sewing out of alignment and the worst thing - nothing you fold stays. There was like this intricate folding thing you had to do to close up the bottom of the pocket, basically fold the edges inwards then hold them together and sew it down so the fray would be inside the pocket itself and my lord, it never stays. It just keeps flopping back out and it’s worse that it has to be curved too (because square/rectangular pockets means one corner is kinda far out and the shape is just annoying to put stuff in) and UGH it was basically the biggest nightmare. I thought curved edges or sleeves were bad, but no. Nothing confuzzled or frustrated me more than POCKETS! My beloved pockets, why do you do this to me…

To be fair though, pockets in general are difficult things to sew. Because even if you get all the sewing down, it all looks good, sometimes once you wear it, the pockets just open. You know?? It makes you look fat, like your hips are so wide, you forced the pockets open, but actually no, it’s just bad sewing. I still don’t get exactly why it pops open like that (I might have to study pockets a little more) but yeah, they are harddddd and my skirt was a bit of a mess. From afar, it looks pretty respectable but if you actually pay attention and squint at the edges, my goodness the lines are all kinds of squiggly! The band at the top was kind of hard to make too, because you actually need to cut a separate piece of cloth to fold over and attach to the top AND align with the zip. Don’t ask me how to make the band. I kind of forgot… I so need a recap * sigh * but you’ll get why I have all these issues in a bit because…

We moved on to fancier pastures! Aka the vest thingy, which was kind of where I got even more confused. It was a complicated thing to create and my grandma tried so hard to give me instructions, she gave up halfway and just ended up giving me pieces of cloth with instructions of where to sew them. Then she just sat behind me and pulled up more cloth to cut and was suddenly adding pieces of cloth to those that we already cut up from the template?! See. This is why I have no idea how to make that band at the top of the skirt. I was sewing. She was cutting and pinning. And I just kept sewing, not knowing how everything came together??? It’s like magically a piece of cloth would appear and I would be wondering, wait where did that come from? Why do we need that? How did you decide on the shape and size and everything?! It was kind of like that for the vest too but at that point, I realised she was sneakily cutting cloth behind me so I paid more attention to it. It was still a bit of a mess though because it’s hard enough to explain when you both speak the language but it’s a hundred times worse when you have to try and translate and figure out what your grandma is saying before comprehending what she actually meant with regards to the matter at hand. A lot of times our conversation was like:

“You’re doing it wrong. This isn’t curved enough. You need it curved.”

“But I am curving it!”

“No you need to pull it!”

“This??”

“No like this.”

“But I did that!”

“You try again.” *stares*

* sews in mild frustration *

“Let me see.” * takes the cloth and examines it with her old grandma glasses * “See, you misaligned it, there’s a gap here! Try again. You need to pull! You’re not pulling enough. Let me undo it for you.” * grabs the scissors and snips thread then proceeds to quickly fold and tuck the cloth again *

“WAIT STOP! How did you do that?? Do it again.”

* sighs * * redoes it but with slightly slower cloth flipping * “Got it?”

“Err… not really… But I guess a little…?” * proceeds to sew again * “Is this okay?”

* squints * “I guess we’ll live with it..”

(Mind you, at this point, our back and forth was getting a little frustrating for both of us even though in hindsight it’s kinda funny XD plus, I think she just wanted to move on and figured I would probably not get it any time soon oops)

“Now you do the other side.” * hands me the cloth back with an expectant look *

* mild panic * * GASP * “What??? You want me to do it again???? I don’t even know what you just did.” * awkward / desperate cloth flapping and tucking * “Erm. Is this okay?”

And somehow, I managed to confuse my own expert grandma with my newbie-ness. That happened with the pockets too. We both just stared at my side and her side and were trying to figure out if we mirrored it right or maybe I messed up somewhere or did my grandma mess up and put things backward? We already confuzzled ourselves once with the pockets and now the jacket shoulders were getting us again :/ it was a hot mess for awhile until my grandma figured it out and was like, “You’re tucking it all wrong. You confused me.” So I guess I did manage to confuse an expert XD in our defence, you try having that whole conversation in a mix of Chinese, Hokkien and English, with limited vocabulary and translation skills. It was a wonder we even managed to get anything done…

Still, we somehow got past that and went on to poofy sleeves which were so fun to make! It’s actually pretty simple in theory; you sew two lines along the edge of the sleeve where it attaches to the shoulder and remove the thread on one side for one of the lines then PULL! Et voila! The cloth bunches up on its own and you can adjust the poofiness to your own liking :) I kinda messed up the first time though coz I forgot I had to curve the lines (or rather, I just still can’t sew curved lines okay) Still, all in all, it was pretty great because at least I got the curves down for the front flaps of the jacket. I was so proud of that, you have no idea. Plus, fun fact, the front flaps are double layered (that’s where the random cloth cutting thing came in) so it’s heavier / stiffer and would lay down nicer instead of flapping open all the time (which totally worked! Thanks Ah Ma, you truly are a pro) I have almost 0 recollection of how I managed to complete the back though. Don’t ask me. I’ll have to go figure it out… but at least now I have a jacket to match my disaster of an A-line skirt!

Chronologically, this placed me with a few days left before I’m due to go home and given all the things I’ve made so far, I was pretty satisfied. Since I had the time though, we thought, why not do another skirt? We could totally do that so we don’t have to fix the pocket problem. Plus, we could try a different, easier pocket design! (No, it was not easier.) We did get to work with a lot of cutting again though and since we come with experience this time, we knew I absolutely sucked at sewing curves so my grandma decided a straighter skirt with no bottom flare would be less easy to mess up (that one was true.) I discovered however, that front square pockets aren’t much easier than side pockets.

You still had to do some backward attaching thingy (which is still blowing my mind) and they were still equally likely to stick out / unravel * sigh * it truly is an art to attach pockets, no joke. In the process though, I discovered that in the past, the seamstresses worked in this big sewing room thingy with much bigger and faster (hence scarier) sewing machines (please don’t let me near them for the sake of my dear heart and fingers. Mostly my heart) and they apparently had an iron on all the time so they could press down the cloth so it’s neat and it stays in shape which makes it a lot easier for them to piece and sew together. That makes a lot of sense, but since we were a two woman show, my grandma thought it was not worth our lives to get out the iron and the ironing board so we just stuck with the old fashioned method. Grab a hammer or the back of a screwdriver and bang the life out of your cloth. Eventually it will stay down. Particularly that danged corner that keeps popping up. It sort of worked but eh, I guess annoying pockets will always be annoying and stick out. Still, round two was a lot easier to manage!

On the second last day, we were a little more ambitious and my grandma finally felt safe enough to pull out some fancier cloth. It’s silkier than the cloth I worked with before, but not as silky as the stupid pocket cloth, so I guess she was relatively confident in my skills (I’m a proud grandchild) This time, I got to be the designer and I must say, I’m pretty satisfied with my ability to design clothes! I’ve never had a jumpsuit so I figured, let me try to make my first one! In fact, in an effort to step outside of my comfort zone and try new things, I tried a v-neck and a sleeveless design. Coupled with the black and white stripes, I gotta say, it looks classy :’) It's supposed to have long pants that flair a little at the bottom but this is my only shot of the jumpsuit so we'll deal hehe (spy my little scrunchie too? WE MADE IT MATCH!!)

We had a bit of trouble with the neckline and the width of the shoulder straps, but after a bit of discussion and contemplation, I convinced my grandma that 5 inches (about 12.5cm!) was wayyyy too wide for the straps and she let me cut it to 3 inches which on a whole looked much better design wise, so yay me! It was super hilarious to ask my grandma, “How do we decide on the size / width of the neck line though?” then watch her just draw a random line and go, “Eh, we just randomly do it and pray for the best. This should probably work!” Experts are just experts… This design was mostly straight lines though and the bell bottom-ish pants meant that no one would ever know if I sewed squiggly lines because you can’t even tell. The only problem I had was attaching the top to the pants and then adding a zip. Oh gosh, that was horrendous. Plus we were in a rush since I was about to head home and basically we ended up with the classic one long one short misaligned cloth situation… Eventually I sent it back to my grandma to edit it for me though so now all is well :)

All in all, it was a really fulfilling 2 weeks for me. I learnt so much in my time there (and there’s so much more to learn!) and I think my grandma was really happy to pass on the knowledge to someone too. It isn’t just the skill that matters. It’s all the tiny tricks she taught me, the things she knew, the stories she would tell while teaching me certain things. I didn’t just learn to sew and make clothes; I learnt about her, I learnt about what seamstresses were like in the past, I heard stories and I learnt patience. So much patience. Communication was really hard but after all the time I spent with her, I find myself a lot closer to her than before. It’s just different, learning how to sew from Youtube videos as compared to sitting in your grandmother’s room and having her watch over your shoulder. It’s not the same, putting in a comment online, hoping someone replies you versus turning around, holding up your work asking if this is okay and if you’re doing it right.

Spending two weeks, just me and her, was a comfortable little pocket of time I will always remember. There’s just something about spending a lot of time alone with an old person, letting them mother you and love you and guide you. If you just sit and listen and let them try to tell you things, you can hear so many incredible stories. Maybe I don’t need these stories, or the knowledge of making my own clothes, but you know, life is a collection of experiences. I like knowing that I’ve at least dipped my toes in this. At least when I want to, I can always make my own fancy designs and wear unique clothes once in awhile.

I felt so special wearing my own matching jacket / skirt combo to work and having a sweet lady I met in the office bathroom compliment me about how unique my clothes are. Thank you sweet lady who made my day and thought I was cool for knowing how to use my grandma's ancient sewing machine! Wearing my own jumpsuit and matching scrunchie to collect my A Level results at school was a magical experience too. I never felt more empowered, capable or grown up. I can take care of myself now. These moments will always be special to me because now I can add my own sparkle to life :)

Besides, this experience was as much about me as my grandma. I think she had a great time remembering her past and telling me all about it. I suppose at her age, it would be easy to forget how much agency you had, forget how much you know and how amazing you are, especially when suddenly younger people are the one teaching you things instead, like how to use the phone or to Google or even an electric sewing machine. I think when I’m old like her, I want to feel useful and knowledgeable still, even if it’s a little outdated. I would like to pass on all the painting and shading tricks I’ve learnt over the years. I’d like to tell my grandchildren stories of all the crazy amazing things I’ve created when I was younger. Most of all, I want to be open minded like her and keep up with the new trends and still be fashionable and a super cool grandma!

Love, life and the act of creating is timeless. It’s beautiful how an 82 years old seamstress can create modern clothes with an 18 years old apprentice of a granddaughter. I’m glad to be a part of that. No matter what people say, I will never think that those two weeks were a waste of my time. In those weeks, I discovered what I was capable of if I stretched myself and truly put my mind to it. I developed a little curiosity for fashion design and I shared invaluable memories with my grandma. Human connection and experience are what’s worth living for. These are the things that mean something and these are the things that fill your heart and warm you up inside. It’s probably going to take a lot more for me to be an expert seamstress like my grandma, but it doesn’t take much for me to be a better granddaughter. Balance in life is important. As I said before, it’s important to live, truly live, before you can truly represent it in art. You need the human spirit fierce and alive within you first before you can put it out on the page.

Love, Cuix

P.S. Did I mention that this post is almost 7000 words long? Thanks for sticking around to the end, you’re the real one! Half of the first version was somehow deleted so I ended up rewriting it, and it’s seriously so long yikes, but it was still worth it to relive those days 3 months ago and think of the amazing experiences I’ve had. These are the moments that matter at the end of the day! When I’m old, I won’t tell my children about the time I spent all day writing Econs notes before my A Levels exams, or even tell them how satisfying it was to pass on all my stacks of TYS. No, I will tell them about the time I sent myself on a short vacation for two weeks and learnt to sew with my grandma and had the time of my LIFE! Warm chrysanthemum tea on a rainy day will always remind me of you Ah Ma, thanks for taking care of me while I was there. I promise I’ll take good care and make good use of your sewing machine when I eventually inherit it.