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Inside
a charming, Old Chicago style brick house, just off Mobile Highway, there
lives a talented homemaker with no complaints. Cooking, sewing and keeping her
home handsome are a large part of her day-in, day-out duties – but Sarah
Doyle is not the average everyday housewife.
Doyle
has taken her tailoring talent a step further – she not only makes her
own clothes, but she makes the original pattern. The 37-year-old homemaker is
currently promoting two books she has written on the subject of pattern
making.
Doyle
got her exposure to the Oriental art during a three-year service-related
stay in Taiwan. While her
husband, Ruben, a former Air Force Tech Sergeant, looked after their 6
children, she would catch a bus and join young Taiwanese women in sewing
and pattern-making classes.
Such
lessons are a traditional prerequisite to marriage for Taiwanese women,
but Doyle saw them as a terrific way to learn to make clothes that fit. She had been sewing since her
grade school years on a farm near Pawnee City, Neb., and remembers being
frustrated when she couldn’t find the right pattern or when one had to
be altered.
“I
discovered early that people are not made the same,” says the petite
woman. “I was really
excited at the idea of making patterns to fit me and my family.”
The
only American student in the class, Doyle took little time learning the
art with the aid of a translator (Taiwanese women instructed the class). After attending a few of the
beginner classes, Doyle knew she had found a life-long hobby. Her enthusiasm trickled down to
other servicemen’s wives who asked Doyle to instruct a class in the art.
As
she advanced to higher-level classes, she began teaching the course to
Americans – her husband was her first student.
She
says he wasn’t as enthusiastic about the course as she was. “But he
didn’t love to sew either. He
would lay out the material and maybe help cut. I’d do the sewing.” She said.
In
classes held in her home, Doyle provided students with an alternative to
pattern altering – designing their own.
“The
main benefit of this hobby is that you can design your own styles,” says
the homemaker. She adds that
the hobby also saves money spent on patterns that are often used once and
thrown away. By making her
own pattern, she is at liberty to throw it away after one use, since the
patterns are made at little cost.
She
says her method is simple, basic one that requires no experience to learn. “It’s as easy as cooking. It’s just a step-by-step method
that takes practice,” she says.
According
to her method, she needs 22 measurements to start on a patterns –
bodice, sleeves, pants – which can be used as the basis for many
creations.
Doyle
says she found it difficult to illustrate to her students the measuring
techniques required for pattern making.
After a few classes in which she had actually cut out patterns
(made from old newspapers) and attach them to the wall so that every
student could see, she decided it would be easier to write a book.
While
still in Taiwan, she began work on what would be a 192- page guidebook
including 1300 illustrations. She worked on the book between household chores, when her six
children were in school or in bed.
“My
husband designed the cover, I did the illustrations,“ she recalls. “It took about two years to
finish that book but I wanted to make it easy enough to learn if I were
not around.”
Doyle’s
book wasn’t published before she left Taiwan, and neither did she
complete courses that she had begun teaching to American friends. Instead, after receiving orders to
return to the United States, she left with a promise to her students that
they would receive a copy of her book.
The
Doyle family returned to the Silver Creek, Neb., Air Force Station, her
hometown area, in 1975. Shortly
after that, her book was released from the printers. More than a thousand copies were
quickly sold by word of mouth alone.
The
incentive was there for Doyle to start on another book. Her first book, tailored to
meet the needs of women and children, contained no guidelines for
un-proportioned men. Her
second book, written while she was in Nebraska, would include patterns for
boys and men and advanced pattern making for women.
 In
1979, after her husband had retired from the Air Force, the family moved
to Pensacola, her husband’s hometown.
The homemaker’s enthusiasm for pattern making and sewing was not
lost in the move. She
continued teaching pattern making in her Bellview home, and in the
meantime passing that talent on to her 15-year-old daughter, Denise.
Doyle
is considering writing a pattern-making guidebook that would cater to
young teens, since she was 10 when she started sewing and her daughter was
about that age.
Doyle
spends a great deal of time working in her quarter acre garden, where she
grows squash, beans, okra, corn, and strawberries. When her hands aren’t busy in
the garden they are working in the kitchen.
“I’m
what you’d call an easy going or easy-to-please person. I’m happiest when I’m working. And with my current lifestyle, I’m
very happy.”
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