How Not to Make a Dress

By Elizabeth Chater

A humorous look at one woman's battle with a sewing project.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chater Publishing
• Release date: Dec 25, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466193895

Elizabeth Chater

Elizabeth Chater (1910-2004) was the author of more than twenty-four novels and countless short stories. She received a B.A. from the University of British Columbia and an M.A. from San Diego State University and joined the faculty of the latter in 1963 where she began a lifelong friendship with science fiction author Greg Bear. She was honored with The Distinguished Teacher award in 1969 and was awarded Outstanding Professor of the Year in 1977. After receiving her Professor Emeritus, she embarked on a new career as a novelist with Richard Curtis as her agent. In the 1950s and 60s she published short stories in Fantastic Universe Magazine and The Saint Mystery Magazine, and she won the Publisher’s Weekly short story contest in 1975. At the age of sixty-eight, she began writing in the romance genre and published twenty-two novels over an eight-year period. She also wrote under the pen names Lee Chater, Lee Chaytor, and Lisa Moore. For more information, please visit: www.elizabethchater.com.

Book preview

HOW NOT TO MAKE A DRESS

Elizabeth Chater

How Not to Make a Dress

Elizabeth Chater

Smashwords Edition

Published by Chater Publishing

Originally published in The Open Door

Published by the YMCA Wives’ Club of Los Angeles

Fall 1969

© 1969 by Elizabeth Chater

Lauren’s Designs

Copyright 1983 as September Song, Elizabeth Chater writing as Lisa Moore.

All rights reserved. Republished by permission.

Cover image by Maestriadiz

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied or distributed for commercial or noncommercial purposes.

Chater Publishing would like to thank Jerry Chater for transcribing the following document.

For more information about the amazing life of Elizabeth Chater, please visit our website: elizabethchater.com

Table of Contents

How Not to Make a Dress

Excerpt from Lauren’s Designs

About the Author

HOW NOT TO MAKE A DRESS

Any adult of reasonable intelligence can learn to sew, I told myself. The sewing machine is, after all, a mere mechanical contrivance. Press the appropriate levers and it must act in accordance with immutable laws. It has neither malign cunning nor the will to resist. You will please forget, I said, that gruesome little piece you read about the Machines coming alive and taking over the world. You have been given this sewing machine and you are going to Make a Dress. Go now and purchase cloth and thread and everything which pertains to the creation of a costume.

My first mistake was in going to an off-trail discount house. There was a certain lack of polish evident in the manner of the young salesgirl to whom I addressed myself. I wish to make a dress, I began nervously.

Well, bully for you, she said. What else is new?

You do have materials for sale, do you not? I inquired with a hint of hauteur.

Are you some kind of nut? All this stuff on the shelves ain’t canned goods, whatta ya want?

It seemed hardly the occasion to admit that I’d thought of a dress that would rustle as softly as a willow tree in a breeze and glow like a field of buttercups, so I said, I’d like some yellow chiffon.

How many yards? She reached down a bolt of cloth.

A good question. About thirty, I hazarded.

Take the bolt, she advised. You get a discount that way.

When I got the material home and spread it out on the dining room table, I was appalled. Yellow chiffon flowed from the table to the floor in endless billows. There was enough for ten dresses. Hesitantly I took up the scissors and prepared to Cut Out.