“My dearest people are in this picture: grandma Nina, my aunts - Iryna and Zenoviia. She and the girls are all wearing the dresses granny used to make herself.
Her husband’s sister, aunt Yuliia, just finished sewing courses so she cut the fabric for these dresses using a stencil drawn on the wallpaper. It was difficult for grandma to cut it near the neck and sleeves, but she skillfully sewed the finished product.
The young couple bought a secondhand sewing machine (made by Podolsk factory) at the bazaar. My grandmother's husband made a foot-powered mechanism for it. This made my granny's job easier. She cut down clothes to adapt them to other sizes, sew bed linen, clothes, and more.
My aunt, who's in this photo, mentioned that the dresses were made of percale. It was bought in a local store, and it cost approximately 3 karbovanets, while chintz ruled from 1 karbovanets 20 kopecks per meter. The dress was very nice and my aunt loved to wear it. As for the color, the basic tone was gray and dim red and green flowers on it. At that time, there were no bright tones in the fabrics at all. My aunt's older sister has a luxurious dress and a satin ribbon in her pigtails. In my opinion, these dresses are a classic of children clothing. Grandma herself in the photo is in a plaid dress made of woolen cloth.
My grandmother sewed for herself, her family, and her closest ones for all her life until she was almost 91 years old. She had no education as a tailor, just a natural gift and ability to intuitively understand how to do it. Tips from her husband's sister also came in handy. Later, she learned to cut on her own and mastered it. Among the products she sewed were sundresses, dresses, scarves, cloth bags to go to the store, work, the market etc. Usually, they were simple but quite practical things. ”
Comment by Iryna Tereshchenko.
This photo is contributed by Iryna Tereshchenko.
