I came across this Vimeo video on Anna Maria Horner’s blog, and really loved it, so I’m sharing it with you. I do, like Anna Maria, lament the dying practice of making beautiful handmade things – dressmaking, embroidery, and quilting too. Tell me, if you can buy clothes that are lower in price because they’re mass-produced somewhere, or if you can go down to your favourite store and buy yourself a clever reproduction of some “home-grown” style, do you? Sure you do. I do. But there are times when I lament that it’s not “real”. That somehow, it’s not authentic. Just like I regret that I didn’t teach my daughters how to sew a flat seam, or put a beautiful welt pocket into a jacket front. I am definitely happy that at least, two of my three girls do sew, one only on her machine – it’s quick and easy, the other by hand – she doesn’t own a machine. But I love that she loves that! Anyway, watch the video, and then we’ll talk some more.

Lacemaking in Lefkara, Cyprus from Etsy on Vimeo.

Women in the village of Lefkara, Cyprus, have been embroidering lace since the 15th century. Now this regional handicraft, recently nominated to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Element collection, is dying out — replaced by machine-made replicas imported from abroad to meet the demand of tourists.

http://blog.etsy.com/article/12782/

I know that there seems to be a bit of a resurgence of young people – both female and male – who love to sew. It’s marvellous! However, I also know that these days, it’s not generally as important as it used to be to make something yourself, and make it so that it’s technically beautiful also, and of a high standard. We have this notion that it doesn’t really matter if the seams aren’t exactly straight. “It adds to that hand-made look”, right? It’s tongue-in-cheek, I know, but the fact is that it’s a justification, a “selling out” of the fine art of tailoring. But why am I surprised? It’s more of that “dumbing down” syndrome. Ordinary is OK, even wonderful, and to be celebrated, so that everyone knows they can have a go and it’s all good. Yeah. Well, while that’s fine on one level, it’s when we collapse that with real skill, like the two have equal merit, that’s where we do ourselves in, as a culture. Do you know what I mean? It’s the same with accuracy in spelling and grammar as a standard that seems to no longer have a critical, essential place in our written and verbal language. “Just so long as you can express yourself”. I’m just saying. I think it’s a shame. Beautifully written, language is pure art. If you can make something yourself, and make it with real expertise and masterful skill, that is a thing of true beauty, and not just to be cherished, but taught to others so that it lives on, long after the pair of hands that originally made it is gone.

I wish I’d demanded more from my father; he could have taught me so much. His “fach“, or occupation, was tailoring. He learned as a boy back in Poland, in Kalisz, and he could take apart a man’s suit, turn it inside out, and stitch it back together again to make a new suit out of it. He could really have passed on so much of his knowledge to me, but instead, I prided myself on being self-taught, learning from patterns, from books. Silly me. Such a missed opportunity. And of course, now, it’s too late. He’s no longer with me to show me anything. I’ve been thinking lately that I’d like to attend sewing classes, probably at Tessuti’s, polish up on my fairly average skills. Thanks, Anna Maria. Thank you for bringing that all into the foreground. I know you didn’t create the video, but you shared it with me, with us. It made me, too, think.