Home Sewing in Literature

I love books as much as I love sewing, and my favorite thing is when I can combine those two loves. I have a very large library of sewing reference books, both new and vintage, and those are luckily very easy to come by.

What's more rare is to find a great novel that incorporates sewing into its themes. In fact, I'm having trouble thinking of many now. The Color Purple by Alice Walker is a great one. And then there's . . . well, that's all I've got. Help me here!

I also love finding little tidbits about sewing in novels. Right now I'm reading The View from Saturday, a fantastic children's book by E.L. Konigsburg. (When I'm not a home seamstress, I'm a children's book editor.) In the first chapter, there's a lovely little gem of a home sewing reference. The narrator is Noah, a sixth grader who helps a group of senior citizens pull off last-minute wedding in Century Village, a retirement community:

Since I had promised to be best man, not having a tux was a problem. I couldn't fit in Allen's, not that I would have wanted to if I could. That's when Grandpa Nate called Bella Dubinsky.

In her former life, Bella had been an artist. She painted the pictures that went into the pattern books for people who sew their own clothes. In the real world I had never met anyone who sewed her own clothes, but in Century Village, I had met three. Bella had a supply of fabric paints, and within two hours, we had painted a T-shirt that looked like a tuxedo with a red bow tie.

Isn't that wonderful? I just love the character of Bella Dubinsky, who once illustrated pattern envelopes--maybe ones just like those in Vogue's New Book for Better Sewing! And then there's the notion of Noah being amazed by the fact that all these retired ladies can actually sew their own clothes.

Now, readers, do you have any favorite novels that have themes of sewing? Or characters who sew? I know there must be more out there!

Career Girls

I've been making an interview dress from the reissue of this Simplicity jumper pattern. Don't those girls on the envelope look smart? Do you think they're resentfully commuting to their jobs in the typing pool, just waiting for a marriage proposal so they can quit? Or are they young whippersnappers with CEO dreams?


As I'm honing my career girl image, I keep thinking of the book The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe. It is the ultimate in scandalous office tales of the 50's. It's like Mad Men, but set in the world of book publishing. And the clothing descriptions are fabulous. Just check out the first paragraph:

You see them every morning at a quarter to nine, rushing out of the maw of the subway tunnel, filing out of Grand Central Stations, crossing Lexington and Park and Madison and Fifth avenues, the hundreds and hundreds of girls . . . They carry the morning newspapers and overstuffed handbags. Some of them are wearing pink or chartreuse fuzzy overcoats and five-year-old ankle-strap shoes and have their hair up in pin curls underneath kercheifs. Some of them are wearing chic black suits (maybe last year's but who can tell?) and kid gloves and are carrying their lunches in violet-sprigged Bonwit Teller paper bags. None of them has enough money.

Oh, the kid gloves and chartreuse overcoats and chic black suits! Doesn't it all seem so glamorous?

The Best of Everything is an awesome and (unintentionally) hilarious book. Caroline Bender, the 20-year-old heroine, gets a job in the typing pool at a book publishing house. Soon she's climbing her way up the corporate ladder. She goes out for multiple double scotches with the sexy office men every evening, yet still manages to read an entire manuscript before the next morning. And all the manuscripts are fabulous and brilliant.

Why couldn't I have worked in publishing in the 50s? Sigh. But then again, the moral of the story is that if you pursue a career as a single gal, you'll get pregnant and fall down a flight of stairs and die. So tragic!