Bias Binding

Bias Binding. Solid words to describe a length of slim cloth that edges, contains and finishes a creation.

I see them both, kneeling on the carpet, bent over a sweep of cloth and a scattering of pins.They are discussing the process like experts; the margin required, how the pattern is matched.

“It should be cut on the bias,” says my mother and I wonder how she knows and what it means.

The fine tissue paper is laid out like a map on the fabric, carefully spaced and pinned in place.

I am in a chair behind them, kneeling up to watch the process. They are making a dress for me, but this is grown women’s work and I would be in the way. Instead I observe, and learn from my mother and my sister. Their backs are bent as they kneel, and the big light throws a shadow across their workplace. They are seamstresses, dressmakers, not by profession but by necessity.

They hand sew the pattern to the cloth, with large even tacking stitches, and then remove the pins.

Many garments have started their existence here, stretched on the floor or the dinner table: a fall of white crepe for a wedding gown, a skim of cotton, floral and crisp for a cool summer frock.

My sister keeps an attache case under her bed, and it is filled with patterns she has collected and stored - one for all occasions.

Simplicity.

But the task is not simple, it is skilled and precise. It is creation, transformation, making the clothing that marks the passage of years - christening, communion, confirmation, marriage.

They are ready to cut. Only one can do this and my sister is deferred to.

“You’re the one with the steady hand”.

I feel an edge of tension. With steely nerve the first decisive incision is made - too late now if a mistake has been made.

I watch the scissors shear through the cloth in long strides; they make a soft crunch as they cut through, using the full length of the blade. Each slice carefully and precisely follows the edge of the paper, lifting the segments of garment out of the fabric and it changes, from luxurious folds to mis-shapen scraps, and the useful parts, with their raw, fraying edges, are laid to one side, to be sewn into their new form.

But that is a task for another time, another evening when hours will be set aside, after the day’s work is done. It will be a job for one of them, for the sewing machine,  and the collaboration is over, for now.

I have been party to this scene many times and, in my mind, it is always the same; brightly lit, chairs pushed back, the television in the background, on but ignored. And it is the process that has stayed with me, rather than the product; the pins, the thread, the tape measure, the bias binding, the language they use and the times when words are not needed, because each one knows their role.

As I watch, I say to myself, ‘one day I will do this, I will be part of this.’

But all my clothes are bought.