Dressing the world
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on August 3, 2016 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Emily Privott, right, looks on as her caregiver, Tammy Radford, stitches up a little girl's dress on Mrs. Privott's sewing machine. The women make good use of Mrs. Privott's assortment of fabrics and trim collected over the years and in recent months have completed more than 120 frocks that will be distributed as part of the mission effort, "Dress a Girl Around the World."
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
A thread caddy, crafted by Emily Privott's late husband, Mack Privott, holds hundreds of spools of thread for easy access as she sews.
Emily Privott learned to sew at a young age.
Doll clothes at first.
Then when her children came along, clothes for her daughters.
"I've just always sewn. I enjoyed it and made dresses. I loved doing it," Mrs. Privott said. "When I got disabled, I needed something to do. I needed a project."
She found one, in the mission effort, "Dress a Girl Around the World," which provides handmade dresses for girls, ages 6-10, delivered by doctors to schools and orphanages across the globe.
Her friend, Mary Rose Casey, had been involved in the work, sewing more than 700 frocks before she passed away in March.
"I knew her a long time," Mrs. Privott said. "I knew her when she got married. She came to my church when it was Goldsboro Friends."
Mrs. Privott's father owned a lot of land on that stretch of Salem Church Road, including the property on which the Friends church now stands, she said. He donated the land for the church.
Now a member of First Baptist Church, she still lives in the house where she grew up. It was where she and husband, Mack, raised five children.
"Mom made all of our clothes growing up," recalled daughter, Jenny Bunn, now a teacher in Fayetteville. "She's got tons of fabric. She's using a lot of the fabric that she bought as we were growing up.
"I found a piece of fabric, I think it was my freshman year in college. It was really kind of neat to see them made into these little dresses for underprivileged kids."
The years of sewing and collecting fabric paid off when Mrs. Privott decided to follow Mrs. Casey's lead.
"She was my friend and I enjoyed making (dresses) with her. I don't know if I could have continued without her or not, but then Tammy came and really works with me," she said.
Tammy Radford had sat with Mrs. Privott's husband before he passed. Now she sits with Mrs. Privott three evenings a week.
Turned out Ms. Radford was a "super seamstress," Mrs. Privott discovered.
"She said, 'I've got a room full of fabric, thread, trimmings, everything,'" Ms. Radford said. "Right now we've got 71 dresses on the bed, made."
Representatives from "Dress a Child" have already picked up two donations, of 20 dresses each time, she said. The women estimated they have made over 120 dresses in the past few months.
It takes about an hour and 15 minutes to complete a dress.
First they pick out fabric and trim, streamlining the process before putting the dress together. They aim to be good stewards of the materials, like cutting out the arm holes and using the remnants for pockets.
"We try to use everything and not waste anything," Ms. Radford said.
It helped that they had Mrs. Casey's example and guidance.
"Miss Rose did tell us that they like to have pockets. When I put on my pocket, I make a double pocket," Ms. Radford said, describing the process of lining up material to make two pockets in one.
Mrs. Casey also provided them with a pattern to go by, along with two completed dresses as a guide. When she passed away, Mrs. Privott said, they presented those dresses to Mrs. Casey's children.
Carrying on such a legacy has been rewarding, the women say.
"It makes us feel good because we're doing something good for children," Ms. Radford said. "We're filling a need and we're contributing.
"Something new and pretty makes us feel good. Can you imagine children that don't have that?"
Their partnership is one of mutual admiration and lighthearted banter.
"We're a designing team. She supervises and helps pick out everything," said Ms. Radford. "I'm just the manual labor."
"If she starts something that won't go, I tell her," Mrs. Privott said with a laugh.
At 81 -- "I'm really just 36 but I look 81," she quipped -- she said Tammy entertains her.
On the evenings Ms. Radford is there, the ladies gather in a converted bedroom, at the same sewing machine once used to create dresses for Mrs. Privott's daughters. Sometimes they'll turn up the volume of the TV in the next room and listen to "The Andy Griffith Show" while they work.
"We sit here and reminisce and we have to laugh," Ms. Radford said. "We laugh every day and we imagine the little girls faces."
"I'm very thankful that I can help and I'm very thankful that I found a use for all my fabric," Mrs. Privott said. "And I've still got that much more fabric upstairs."