Dancing in Blue Lace

Dancing In Blue Lace
Today I set about mending a dress of my mother’s. This wasn’t just any everyday dress, this was a formal blue lace ballroom dancing dress lined with blue satin. I believe Mother made it to wear in a ballroom dance floor show. Each year the stake sponsored the Gold and Green Ball and perhaps she made it for that event. At one time she and Terry were called to the ward dance directors as a couple. This would have been in the early 1950’s, possibly in between her sixth and seventh pregnancies of Christy (1952) and myself (1954). Terry recalls that, “Mother and I could waltz really well.”
When I first tried the dress on I was surprised that is really wasn’t that much too big for me. I am a bit shorter than Mom was but always in my mind she was or at least she was always complaining that she was heavier that she wanted to be. There of course are no size tags in this dress because she made it but I am guessing that it is maybe a size 12. I wonder where she bought the fabric, did she go to Salt Lake or Idaho Falls or was such yardage to be found in Afton, Wyoming?
The dress is made in two parts first the under dress/slip of navy satin and then the lace overdress. It is waisted with a long skirt cut to flair gracefully at the bottom as she turned and danced. It has a fitted bodice with a unique sweetheart neckline with no shoulder seam but the back coming over the shoulder and down 3 or 4 inches to meet the front bodice which was gently gathered to create fullness across the bust. The front neckline folds over ever so slightly to create a soft lapel on the lower part of the neckline. I have not seen a similar treatment and wondered if she had seen it in a magazine or if she just designed it and draped it into what she saw in her head. Being a seamstress myself I know that some designs evolve as they are being created. The sleeves are a short softly gathered puff with a slit, there is a ribbon that runs underneath from the shoulder seam to the end of the sleeve which lifts it up and creates fullness along with a small shoulder pad. She made a belt out of three different colors of velvet ribbon sewn together, light blue, wine and navy. At the end of each sleeve is a knot of matching ribbon.
As I looked at her neat stitches inside and out I could easily imagine what enjoyment she experienced as she fashioned this elegant costume. What sheer joy in the creation process as it took shape and from yards of flat fabric as it became a beautiful dress. I could see this dress had been worn a fair amount as it was showing signs of wear as the lace was pulling apart in places. How many times did she wear it and where I wondered. I can just see her smile and her face light up as she danced around the room complimented by her handsome son Terry. Was she doing the waltz, the foxtrot or the Viennese. Dancing was one of her great loves and she passed this onto her daughters and I see it surfacing in her granddaughters as well. I could see some places that had been mended and altered. I think she must have loaned the dress to someone shorter than she and they shortened it at the shoulders but it was done with red thread and basted. I don’t think it was Mother’s work because she would have never used red thread. There was also some mending done at the waistline with a turquoise thread and again I don’t think she would have used any other color than what matched.
As I finger the hand stitching on the facing of the underslip I can see her fingers with the needle and thread deftly and gracefully moving in and out to make it lay just perfect. Has she become more perfect than she really was in my mind? I don’t think so because I have this dress and others to prove of her abilities. Pressing and mending the fabric that she so lovingly sewed I feel connected to her. I feel great gratitude that she in turn shared her gift of sewing and creating with me and that she instilled in me a love for beauty and refinement.
The thought ran through my head that she would have been a wonderful designer and could have worked with Rose Marie Reed designing swimsuits or formals, she certainly had the talent. She chose instead to be our mother and use her creative talents sewing for us girls and teaching us to be mothers ourselves. I think she would be pleased if she could spend a day with us as we delight in our recreational sewing gatherings, she would appreciate the décor of our homes and how we set a lovely table. I think too that she would be pleased to see how we have emulated her in our domestic and mothering skills, but then we had the best teacher.
Now if I could just come up with some place to wear her dress and let it dance once again.
Liza B Wilson March 2011