Do you guys remember this dress?
I made it with some of the fabric I got in Japan, and (iirc) a lot of you REALLY liked that fabric.
Well, I got an update from SuperBuzzy this weekend, and they have this fabric! In the orange, and in this very nice blue:
It's pretty expensive (almost $17/yard) but a LOT cheaper than a trip to Japan, so, really, when you think of it that way, it's like you're SAVING money.
Oh, and thanks for all the kind words about the Crossword Puzzle Tournament — I actually did much better this year than last year, despite having been a puzzle slacker AND despite staying up super-late Saturday night at a TMBG concert. (They played ALL of Flood
One more thing: the Duro column is up at the Boston Globe. I'm getting a lot of flack (mostly in email) for using the word "sewist" instead of "sewer," so feel free to leave a comment with your opinion … (Mary Beth, I'm looking at you!) There are also comments from people who think that if a particular combination of letters exists in ANY language, you can't say it's a "new" word in English. Sigh. Why don't we teach linguistics in high school, again?
A Dress A Day 
I read your Article and I loved it. But I will comment on those Boston Globe commenters! Ouch – what cranky-pants they are! Those people are MEAN and what tops it off, also ignorant! (A lethal combination.)
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The lovely orange reminds me that spring is still not here, darn it!! I really liked your column, and can’t imagine some snarky commenter taking you to task for using the word “sewist”. It sounds quaint and British, and I wouldn’t have known it wasn’t the proper word if you hadn’t mentioned it. How lame. It’s not as if you used the “word” irregardless; I can see getting steamed about that!
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I tend to think of myself as a seamstress … unless I’m tailoring. To me, a dressmaker makes dresses (it’s very work-specific); a tailor tailors (also work-specific); neither is gender-specific. There are also “costumers,” who are also not gender-specific. The terms “seamstress” for women and “seamster” for men seem pretty descriptive; and I’ll take “sewist” over “sewer” any time. These are the folks who sew, and who do not limit their work to dressmaking or tailoring.I think when you know what title someone likes to use, it’s polite to use it; however, if you are referring to a group of people who engage in similar needle-related activities, you do the best you can to come up with something inclusive and not offensive – which would seem to me to include sewist, stitcher, seamster and/or seamstress … and sewer, if you must. I think the people who get ballistic about being called one of the above are really just looking for something about which to get ballistic.I’m sorry you’re getting nasty emails from people who have nothing better to do with their time, Erin! For some reason I can’t read the Boston Globe comments, and it may be just as well …
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Personally I like seamstress. It is separate from dressmaker which is the term for someone who makes clothes. A seamstress can whip up anything. I do a lot of things and hardly ever get to make clothes for myself, but do a lot of things for the house and child. However, sewist sounds like a made up term to give status to someone who messes around with sewing but does not take it seriously.
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what miss amelina said:But I like Sewist….It sounds serious. It makes me think of a lady in cat-eyes with a marking pencil behind her ear, licking her lips in determination, seated at the machine, surrounded by piles of fabric.I just tell people “I sew”…and I Am the lady in cat-eyes, with pencil, lip-licking, at the machine with piles of fabric….and nice Duro (s)
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Thanks, Joni! I am going to find some great fabric and give it a shot. It looks like a very figure flattering dress and also one that I would actually want to wear.I like “scrapper” b/c it sounds spunky.
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Obvs, I prefer sewist. It presents no confusion in writing, it sounds sort of hip and updated, and (as Oracle said) it sounds to me more like what one is rather than what one does. “Sewer” sounds to me like the physical drudgery of making whatever is put in front of you, “sewist” captures the whole process of choosing and tweaking your pattern, matching it to fabric, adding trims, etc. etc. There is no objective value to this opinion, of course. It’s just how I feel about the words.
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Erin, I just scrolled down from the chartreuse dress and looked at this one again. I just love it! It looks great.
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Great dress. You’re right about it being cheaper than a trip to Japan. Mm…But I -loathe- sewist. Pompous nonsense term invented by people who didn’t like ‘seamstress’ (or sewer) because they thought that frumpy idea was beneath their Artiste self. Fuck them.
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There was a recent article in my local paper (the San Jose Mercury News) about girls AND BOYS being inspired by Project Runway to take up sewing. Local sewing, fabric, and quilting stores have more kids of both sexes in their classes. For me, “seamstress” is too gender-specific and/or gender-exclusive, especially since more and more sewists are male.http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_11700840?IADID=Search-www.mercurynews.com-www.mercurynews.comThe article reports that the kids are inspired by the entire creative process: imagining a garment or project you want to make, then actually producing the object that you imagined. During a chat with one of my male coworkers, I found out that he sews, and he commented on how much fun it was, for that very same reason – taking your ideas from imagination to creation.CMCPS: On the SJ Merc website, the commenters are also astonishingly rude and obtuse. Some people jump at the chance to be rude and vicious when they are anonymous and unaccountable.
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Hey, planning-visit-to-Boston person, I promise we are very nice here. People who comment on newspaper sites across the land: troglodytes. People who actually leave their basements in Boston: salt of the earth.I don’t sew, so I don’t have a dog in this sewist/sewer/seamstress/dressmaker fight. But AS someone who doesn’t sew, I will say that “dressmaker” does connote, to me, someone you can hire to make clothes for you.And it’s hard for me to get my mind around the idea that “he” is unmarked. Really? Really??
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May I confuse everyone by throwing another term into the ring? Sewster.I found it while wading through sewing terms in the Shorter Oxford a few weeks ago. It’s a long obsolete (except in Scotland, allegedly) late Middle English term for a seamstress. I think it deserves a bit of dusting off and am happily adopting it as my craft descriptor of preference.
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Yeah, I think Erin might know a thing or two about TMBG. “Contrecoup,” anyone? :)And I would like you to know I have successfully and correctly used the word “limerant,” several times now. So, it lives.Did you dance the conga line to “No One Knows My Plan?” Best part of a TMBG concert, I’ve found!
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Sadly, they didn’t play “No One Knows My Plan,” even though that’s probably my favorite TMBG song. And it’s a good thing they didn’t play Contrecoup, because I might have needed medical attention. 🙂
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Dislike “sewist,” too. It’s too internet-y. “Seamstress” is the only term I can get off my tongue in public without cringing; if the men take up sewing en masse, they can cook up their own labels. Maybe they would actually call themselves “male seamstresses” till we all got used to the idea that “seamstress” isn’t necessarily gender-specific. We’ve already done it with “nurse” and “soldier.” The etymology is not that relevant to most people. Reminds me of reactions to the term “housewife.” A lot of middle-aged ladies dislike it reflexively, but I’m 27 and really just don’t get it. Most “domestic engineers” or “stay-at-home parents” ARE wives– what’s with the obsessive need to obfuscate?
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But your “Duro” coinage is great, and even though it came from internet discussion, just as “sewist” did, it doesn’t seem at all forced.As you say, it filled a small need. “Sewist” only fills a need for a very certain sort of people to have ideologically proper terminology to describe their hip, fun, creative hobby– but a perfectly serviceable word already exists to describe 99 percent of the people it is supposed to cover.
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