Dealing With One’s Hang-Ups

Judy!Judy! Judy!

When I was 19 and a student, I bought myself a pretty summer dress in Coventry C&A. It was made of two co-ordinating blue floral cotton prints. My landlady always referred to it as the “Sweet Little Alice Blue Gown” I loved it – and there were many happy memories attached to it. Nearly twenty years and two babies later, I had to admit I would never fit into it again, and it really should leave my wardrobe.  But rather than get rid of it, I dismantled it, and covered five coathangers.

I always intended to have a wardrobe full of pretty hangers like this. I dislike plastic hangers – they snap, their sharp lines leave marks on the shoulders…Bob has all his shirts and suits on wooden IKEA hangers. I have always been too thrifty mean to buy these for myself – and anyway my clothes seem to drop off the sloping shoulders.

But this year things are going to be different!

After all, I made lots of pretty hangers as Christmas gifts for other people, and taught the Sewing Club girls how to make them too. So I took all the random padded hangers in my wardrobe and did three last week. I put tiny buttons on the shoulders to hold skirt loops.

This week at odd moments, I have made five more. I have not put buttons on all of them yet. I am still undecided about adding bows.

These are the last four wooden ones in the wardrobe**, and they need to be wrapped in wadding and covered.

The one at the top has a tiny price sticker on the end. It says “Woolworths 1/9” – that came from my Mum. The one at the bottom is Belgian, and came from Bob’s Mum. I will choose something special to cover those two, to remind me!

You’ll notice that the hangers I have already made are in different colours. It seemed better to me to use a selection of pretty fabrics from the Great Stash, rather than make them all the matching.

According to Charla Krupp, author of the 2008 bestseller “How Not To Look Old”, “Check your wardrobe. Nothing ages you like outfits that are too matchy-matchy: Matchy-matchy makes you look oldie-oldie.”

And I certainly don’t want to have an oldie-oldie wardrobe, do I?

How do some people get into the bestseller lists when they use such odd words? Congratulations to my blogfriend Frances Dowell, who writes very well, and has just got into the best fiction for young adults list produced by the USA Young Adult Library Services Association.

**I need more than seventeen hangers so I must find a source of some more cheap wooden ones. Dunelm or the Poundshop, I think!

Having typed up this post, I have just discovered that Ms Krupp died on Monday, aged only 58. How sad that this vivacious blonde will never actually get to BE old.