Necessity

I began making clothes of my own out of necessity. I am tall, extremely thin....no matter how much I eat, ribs remain visible beneath my skin. If clothes fit girth-wise, they are far too short.... if height-wise, they are far too wide, and I must hold them to avoid them falling off, even when using belts. I became weary of this, and that started me to sew my own clothing. For a while, I would embroider the clothing with pictures from the imagination. However, when I moved to the current family I am with, "excess" ornamentation caused me to be taunted more: my clothes got destroyed much easier and more often by joking peers, so I switched to plainer garb, still based on simplified historical models but without decoration: gathered-leg trousers, knee-breeches, plain 18th-century-style coats...all in dull, easily patched colors. There is still something of me in my clothing, but one day, when it is safe, I shall return to embroidery and ornament: a brilliant phoenix emerging from carcass of an ashy threadbare coat.