One Chinese New Year, my mother presented me with a little red dress. The dress was not purchased but sewn with love - in its entirety - by my mother herself.
In the 1960's and 70's, it was common for local Singapore women to make and sew their own dresses. Yet, to sew a dress from scratch was a brave undertaking in the 90's when factory-produced dresses were widely available in all sorts of materials and patterns in the shiny departmental stores of downtown Orchard.
Yet, my mother has always had a knack for the aesthetics. In the days leading up to that particular Chinese New Year, I remembered her bent diligently over the old Singer sewing machine, peddling hard while the thread spun rapidly and the machine buzzed. That particular sewing machine was in itself a very well-preserved antique with its aged, wooden top and very heavy, metal peddle. It had belonged to my late grandmother before my mother received it upon her passing.
Understandably, my mother was very reluctant to part with the sewing machine - and it continues to take pride of place in our house today.
Making a dress requires much patience and an eye for detail. From finding the right dress pattern and cutting the cloth, to carefully piecing the dress together on the Singer machine and finally, to hemming the edge of the dress painstakingly by hand - all these was undertaken by my mother as a labour of love.
The completed dress was a piece of handiwork which had literally stood the test of time: lusciously red, delicately patterned, sleeveless, low-waisted and with an eye-catching white-lace collar, it continues to hang in my cupboard till this very day. It is also all the more precious to me now that my mother is getting older and would certainly not be able to undertake a similar project.
More importantly, it is a tangible, daily reminder of her love and of an age gone by, when mothers still had time - and the know-how!- to sew for their children.
Article migrated from original My Story Portal 2007.
Author. Stillwaters