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My adventures with stitching :)

When we were deciding the costumes for Achalayatan, we had a lot of ideas but neither S nor A nor I are trained costume designers and do not have in-depth knowledge of tailoring. So P called in R who is a trained costume designer. However she had exams and could only make the designs. We had to get them executed from tailors by instructing them and make the simpler ones ourselves. So two days before the competition show of Achalayatan, C and I were sitting at my place staring at this huge bundle of cloth. We had to make 6 cloth belts of an unusual design. C has absolutely no idea about anything remotely related to stitching. So it fell upon me to take the responsibility. I knew the design and had the measurements. I decided to make a cutting on newspaper first and then trace it on the cloth and finally cut the cloth. I have never done any stitching before. If I made a mistake the cloth would be wasted and precious time too would be lost. So I was very scared of putting scissors to cloth. But there was no option. S and A who were a bit more knowledgeable than me in this area were out doing other work related to the backstage of the play. Once I traced the newspaper cutting on the cloth, I sat for the longest time staring at the cloth…very scared even to touch the scissors. C finally said, don’t think so much. C’mon let’s just do it…and suddenly I realized that I had made the newspaper cutting all wrong ! It was such a relief to realize it before cutting the cloth ! I made a fresh cutting…corrected version this time. And after I traced that one on cloth, somehow I didn’t feel scared at all. I just asked C to hold the other end of the cloth and started cutting like an experienced tailor. The belts turned out just right !


On the day of the show, a couple of hours before the show began, S asked me if I could fashion a full-length tunic made from thick sack cloth for K. Even without any knowledge or previous experience, I just replied, “Sure, I’ll do it.” Then I took K’s measurements, made a design in my mind, marked it directly on the sack cloth (emboldened by my experience with the belts!) and cut it. Then I stitched the sides with a thick rope. We needed something akin to buttons to prevent the open flaps in front from hanging loose. So, I fashioned buttons from the rope and also loops to encircle the buttons and stitched them on the left and right flaps in the front, with the thick rope. Even though I say so myself, my design and especially the idea for loops and buttons worked very well. The tunic was looking very nice :)


Now I am confident that I could do most of the basic stuff in stitching clothes…I have a good sense for it, I believe and now, some experience too :) More importantly, I realized that anybody who has a good logic and good observation (me included) could apply themselves to anything and learn any skill reasonably well in a short period of time.

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