joys of tropical fabrics « Letters from Grenada

joys of tropical fabrics

I am what you could call an intermediate seamstress, but only if you were being kind. Both my mom and my grandmother can really sew, though, so I grew up accustomed to wandering the aisles of fabric stores. I’d run my fingers along the bolts like they were books on a library shelf, waiting until Mom or Grandma was finished.

In Grenada you can easily get fabrics you’d never ever find at Jo-Ann or Tillum’s. (Yes, I’m from Rockland County.) Day-glo hibiscus flowers, jungle toucan prints, sedated frenzies of geometric color from Africa. The African prints never include living things, so we never mistake it for something we got in Hawaii. (Thanks to my uncle the entymologist from Waipahu, we’ve also had insect fabrics. No kidding. There was so much of it Grandma made sheets.)

My mom is retired and she’s loved to sew ever since she was a campfire girl. (Or was it 4-H? She did both and I get confused, because I did none of those girl-makes-jelly-and/or-a-quilt things.) Mostly she has made clothes, robes and curtains, but she also excels at cushions. When I was about 14, she recovered a full-size sofa bed, with matching edges and everything. There were Halloween costumes, including Peter Pan (me) and a turquoise Converse sneaker (my brother). There were doll clothes, for that very brief period that I was into Barbies. There were costumes for plays, from Shakespeare to Shaw. When I was 12 and suddenly grew hips that were doorknob magnets, she was able to make me clothes that fit well without making me look like I was playing dress-up. She performs tailoring miracle on jeans with too-big waists.

The Grenadian sun literally bleaches everything it hits, so it surprises me not at all that she’s amusing herself these days by recovering all the cushions for the chairs that live on our verandah. She’s done two sets — one in yellow pleather and the other in what I like to call “toucan supreme”.

My headbands —> I love these things so much. Without them I think I’d have cut my hair boy-short by now. I’m fully aware of how loud they are, yes, but I love them still. I swear I only wear the neutral (black & white) ones when I’m back in the States. Frankly, I don’t need them in New York; the weather is different. The headbands really keep the sun from both my hair and my face. One of them was even specially made for the election… It’s supposed to be yellow, though I realize now it truly is orange.

I had a lot of fun setting up those photos. I made like I was making the top of an apple pie. (For more photos of all the projects discussed in this post – including some where I’m actually wearing the headbands, see the complete album in my photo gallery.)

This is my housekeeper in her wedding dress. Très funky. Mom made it. I picked the fabric. Cheryl requested a dashiki; I’m pretty sure the green was my idea. We had no pattern, so I googled dashiki images. There were plenty of gems, which Mom studied for a bit. She sat in front of my Macbook for an hour, and then…

Mom tells me that the dress just kind of sprang up organically from the fabric. If you’ve met her, you know she means that.

I am reminded of this passage in Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible:

“Whenever a woman leaves her wide-to-the-open-world yard to work her field or saunter off on an errand, first she must make herself decent. To do this, even though she is already wearing a wraparound skirt, she will get and get another large square of cloth from the house, which she warps around her first skirt – covering her legs right down to the instep of her foot – into a long, narrow sarong, tied below her breasts. The cloths are brightly painted and worn together in jangling mixtures that ring in my ears: pink gingham with orange plaid, for example. Loose-joint breaking-point colors, and whether you find them beautiful or find them appalling, they do make the women seem more festive, and less exhausted.“

As I wrote the first draft of this post, Mom studied the batik house dress I was wearing. “Should I copy that for you? We’ve still got plenty of that black and white fabric with the silver.”

Isn’t she great?