A Complement . . . I Think or We've Come a Long Way Baby

Today was unseasonably warm here so I was out doing my weekly errands wearing one of my versions of M5893 (I love this dress! If I have time, I should really make another).

As I was putting my groceries in the trunk I just felt like someone was approaching me. I turned around to see this big, burly, mustached, tattooed guy just a tad too close, who just blurtted out "where'd you get your dress". Now you know I talk for a living and through the years have heard just about everything, however, I kid you not my brain froze for just a second trying to synthesize what I was hearing with what I was seeing. He must have noticed because he went on to say that his "old lady" had seen me in the store and liked my dress and wanted to know where I got it, "no kidding, she really liked it and kept saying she wanted a dress like that, MAYBE IN A DIFFERENT PRINT but a dress just like that." (Musing to self: Did he just ask me to share information with him and say he doesn't like my fabric all in the same sentence? hmm . . .) I told him I made it -- now his turn for brain freeze induced silence. Apparently he thought he heard wrong because when he recovered he said "what! you made that?" shortly thereafter you could see his eyes practically glaze over and he went on his merry way.

I found the whole exchange pretty humorous but it also made me reflect, I remember when I first started sewing and back then I would NEVER tell people that I made a garment I was wearing because the moment you do they almost instinctively begin to look for the tell-tell signs that your garment is homemade, the worst were the people who actually flip the hems of your garment up to inspect how the garment was finished (forgive me, for I was very young then, that would never happen to me now). But these days, armed with more experience and better tools, when people ask about my clothes, I can't wait to tell them that I made it because I am confident in my abilites and proud of the pieces that I make. Just a little something I thought I'd share.