Celebrating Handmade: Japan's Indigo Farmers

As part of a celebration of all things handmade, I would like to regularly feature a post or article about craftsmen and women who create one-of-a-kind items: whether it's intricate and elaborate, simple and heartfelt, reflects a long tradition or is quirky and unique. In our era of mass-produced fast fashion and disposable culture, it's often easy to forget there is a real person and talent behind these amazing items!

This week: Japan's indigo farmers, a passionate, dying breed of talent that is threatening to be replaced completely by mechanization. Check out the link to find out how these amazing pieces are created in what is a tremendous labor of love. Great Big Story: True Blue: Indigo Dyeing in Japan

Japanese indigo cloth. Source: http://tetotetote-sendai.jp/shoaihiyashizome/index.html

Celebrating Handmade: Parachute wedding gowns

As part of a celebration of all things handmade, I would like to regularly feature a post or article about craftsmen and women who create one-of-a-kind items: whether it's intricate and elaborate, simple and heartfelt, reflects a long tradition or is quirky and unique. In our era of mass-produced fast fashion and disposable culture, it's often easy to forget there is a real person and talent behind these amazing items!

This week: parachute wedding gowns?

Months ago I came across a FaceBook post about a woman who had made a silk wedding gown for herself out of her soldier-husband's military parachute during World War II. If there isn't anything more romantic than that, I don't know what is. 

Smithsonian National Museum of American History 

Major Claude Hensinger was forced to bail out of his aircraft in August 1944 and both he - and the parachute - survived. He later proposed to his girlfriend Ruth, who took the dress to a local seamstress and had her make a Gone With the Wind-inspired bridal gown out of the material. In those days, many materials - including silk - went straight to the war effort, so fancy fabric was in short supply. The couple married in 1947, and since then two other brides have worn the gown before it was donated to The Smithsonian. 

Not surprisingly, there are many other examples of parachute wedding gowns that survive the war and some dire circumstances. 

Jewish bride Lili Lax used her war-time cigarette rations to pay a seamstress to sew her wedding gown, made from a parachute that her fiancé had obtained from a former German airman in trade for "2 pounds of coffee and cigarettes." After her miraculous survival from a number of concentration camps, she met her husband Ludwig, in 1945, and together they and their daughter arrived in New York in 1948. After Lili's wedding, she sent the dress to dozens more brides for their special day.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Accession Number: 1999.7.12. a 

Celebrating handmade: Antique cross stitch samplers

Think back to a time before iPads and television, to a time when young girls had little to do on a rainy day but sew. While now we debate the merit of even teaching kids cursive in school, young girls would while away the hours killing two (or three) birds with one stone while doing these samplers - memorizing Bible verses, alphabets and practicing their stitchery skills all at the same time.

One of the earliest samplers on record dates between 200 BCE to 300 CE - that's pretty amazing. The oldest European samplers in existence date to the 16th and 17th century, but many have been lost to the ravages of time.

Historically materials used often included cotton, wool, linen and silk, as well as gold and metal thread. As material was often expensive at the time, early samplers featured stitches that were often very neat and intricate, adding much importance and sentimental value to the piece, which could often be found among a family's willed possessions and passed down from generation to generation.

Some were done by children as young as nine

Later in the 17th and 18th centuries, samplers because common in schools, and designs became much more informal and practical. School themes would often include alphabets, maps, multiplication tables and other educational elements. By the 19th century, the work was much more utilitarian, displaying knowledge rather than sewing skills. Many of them have been reproduced today for modern stitchers to recreate.