The fabrics of life and the genetics of nostalgia

Aptly put by Heather of Freespirit Freshcut fabric fame, I'm regularly  "zapped by the nostalgia fairy.", particulary with each return to my childhood home in Seattle.  This last time, I brought back from there an envelope of pictures from when I was little, a couple of bundles of my grandmother's letters from the 1920's, and a few other things from my childhood.

September 1972.  I turned 3 that same month.  In the yard at my grandma and great-grandma's house in south Seattle. (After my grandpa died, my grandma  moved in with her mother.  They were gardeners, not sewers or knitters, by the way.)   Flowery pants and smiley face sweatshirt.  Even the plastic margarine containers on the table had great prints on them.  And that picnic table with chairs that folds down into a suitcase?  Someone gave us one a few years ago and we turned around and gave it away for some silly reason.  They weigh a ton, but I'd loooove to have one now. Instant picnic table for a family of four anytime, anywhere.

March 1973.  Sun Valley, Idaho.  I was three and a half.  My first placeable memories are from this spring break trip with my family and I remember SO MUCH about it, I suppose because it was outside of the rhythm of everyday life.  My grandma,
"Nana",  came along to spend the days with me while my parents and older brothers skied.  I skied for the first time here, as well, and there's a great family movie my brothers made called "Nana Goes Skiing" from that trip, too.  AND I remember those flowery stripey pants so very well, too.  HOW I LOVED THEM.  I wore them until there were holes in the knees and then my mom cut them off and made them into shorts (more on that in another post, maybe tomorrow.)  Those reindeer fur boots from Norway?  I still have them and both of our boys wore them, too.

Is it any wonder I'm attracted to the prints in the quilt from yesterday's post?    My family was in no way hippies.  They were middle class parents busy raising children, oblivious to much of the counter culture of the late 60's and early 70's.  These are the fabrics of my childhood, just the fabrics of the time.  Bright, naive, optimistic prints at another time when our country was in the thick of a terrible war, one that I didn't even know had taken place during my own lifetime until I was half way through high school, believe it or not. 

I had pants in that Tic-Tac-Toe print and I know there are either pictures or a movie of me wearing them and playing baseball in the backyard but I couldn't find one anywhere.  Melody commented yesterday that her grandma had a blouse in that same print and that she herself had a whole wardrobe in the light blue with daisy print!

One more, just because:

Oh, and one more treasure brought back from Seattle:

A binder Nana put together of the pictures I drew for her throughout my early childhood.  She put together one of these notebooks for each of her six grandchildren but, being the only grandaughter, mine is flowered.  There are also several binders full of my dad and his brother's drawings from when they were young in the 30's and 40's.  Yeah.  She was one of those grandmas who saved everything.  I'm afraid I've inherited the nostalgia gene.

More trips to come down memory lane through the fabrics of my life throughout the next week or so.  Sorry.  Hang in there.  I'd love to hear others' stories and read posts about the fabrics of your childhoods and how they intertwine with your own memories and work their ways (or don't) into your lives now.

       

Comments

[kae]

Oh, I love this post! How sweet that your nana saved your drawings; that's what nana's are for, isn't it?

I've been tripping down memory lane, too http://sweetpot8o.blogspot.com/ ...must be the time of year when we start remembering family vacations and get nostalgic...

[Stephanie]

My brother had overalls out of that tic-tac-toe fabric as well! Gotta love the 70's. My family was the same..not hippies at all. But man oh man did we ever wear a lot of funky colored plaid and prints. I miss them so much. I remember wearing my bright red shiny patent leather mary janes with everything too. I didn't care if it matched or not. I loved those shoes. I might have to find myself some again!

[Carrie]

I remember a pair of green corduroy pants and a turtleneck with green frogs. I LOVED my frog outfit. I still wish for a frog outfit.
A year or so ago, my stepdaughter bought a skirt at Ross with this wild and crazy flowered print that caught my attention for some reason. It took me a week or so of percolating to remember that my first big-girl bedsheets were the same print. They're still in the linen closet at my dad's.

[Peg]

What treasures and your Nana would be pleased to see you enjoying your book. What is the boys reaction to pictures of their Mom or her art work as a child?
Children, at certain early ages, find it difficult to understand their parents as being any other age than the current one!

[Lana]

Oh what a great idea your nana had!!! It's funny that you're in such a nostalgic mood, because I have been too these past few days. I've been helping my grandfather clean up the shed and barn and we found so many gems from our past. I opened an old sewing box and found a stack of hand written recipes that my grandmother had gathered over the years. She had completely forgoten about them. I took them and created a binder just like your nana. (Which reminds me... I forgot to add them to my last blog post. haha. Thanks for the reminder) ^_^

[Amber]

Well, I grew up right about the same time as you (I think we must be close to the same age) and my mom was a sewer. She sewed ALL of our clothes while growing up. The fabric I remember most is a "Leopard" print coat that she made for me. It was all fuzzy and warm and I wore it a lot. When I outgrew it we gave it to the local goodwill and I remember at some point seeing another child holding her mom's hand walking down the street wearing my old coat. Both my mom & I felt good about that.

Also, I have so many childhood photos of myself that look so similar to the ones you have here! Thank you for the trip down memory lane!

[homejewel]

The smiley sweatshirt brings back so many memories for me.

Last summer, I found that exact fold-up table at a garage sale. I think I paid $5 for it. It is wonderfully solid. If I remember correctly, it is Coleman brand.

The gool ol' days :)

[Heather in Seattle]

Great post! I don't think you need to ask us to hang in there. Now if only I could find that photo of me wearing the bell bottoms with green weiner dogs on them...

[melody]

Love the album idea... that is so sweet. How cool is that to look back on now? Coming from a long line of seamstresses, I also think one of the reasons that I have such a passion for vintage fabric is because of all the great memories that I associate with different prints. Last year, I made my girl's Easter dresses out of some leftover vintage yellow swiss dot that my gram had used for her kitchen curtains... I loved those dresses all the more because (not only did the girls look so adorable in them) but they made me think of my Gram.

[mrspao]

I love that binder your grandmother made - it's such a great idea. I often have a yearning for older times so we end up with strange old items which remind me of my childhood.

[Arianne]

I'm from Seattle too. I haven't been back in 3 years. I'm very homesick.
The nostalgia fairy dusts me regularly.

[jean]

How I love that binder. And what a thoughtful nana. And I soooo dig your pants!! My sisters and I had soft soft corduroy pants we used to wear. There were two big buttons on the waistband. We used to pretend they were some kind of communication system. (Early 70's space madness play.) The buttons constantly popped off and my mom would sew them back on. Good times.

[Elizabeth]

My grandmother sewed a lot of my clothes when I was younger and in my yearly school photos you can see my favourites that I wore for Picture Day. Apparently I wore two of the dresses two years in a row (one was clearly getting very short but hey, it was the late sixties!) My sister and I say the knitting, sewing, cooking gene skips a year because we both take after Grandma in that respect but my mom could care less about these things. Apparently when I left home my Dad really missed all the home baking, even though he complained about the messes in the kitchen at the time!

[angelique]

That binder is a treasure! I don't have any of the fabrics of my childhood anymore but I do remember them well, especially a pair of corduroy pants in a wild-n-crazy 70s pattern that matched the carpet of a diner we frequented so well, we called them my "PIcadilly Cafeteria pants."