The original title was “Pattern Stories.”

I envisioned each chapter was a pattern and the dress that that particular pattern became, a dress that was made for a special occasion. But as the story unfolded in front of me as I wrote it, it changed into something else. It became Ida’s story.

But it wasn’t really just about Ida.

Yes, it was Ida’s story as she and her pilot turned space researcher husband Elliott married and moved to Albuquerque in 1960, taking Ida away from her family and Ohio, yet dreaming of the life she would build with Elliott.

Life, however, has a funny way of not always turning out as we thought it would. While Ida fully expects that she and Elliott will have a family, children circling them, slowly her story begins to change when that doesn’t look promising. Elliott encourages her to find meaning in something to do other than clean their apartment.

That’s when she begins to sew. But not just sew for herself, but for the women around her and in the wider city of a booming post-war Albuquerque.

I found Ida’s way through these patterns. She learned how to help other women find happiness in their dresses (and a swimsuit), giving them the confidence in their own lives. And learned that the story she was supposed to tell about her own life would be something different. Not bad, just different.

The pattern companies didn’t always place copyright dates on the patterns, particularly in the 1960s, so some of my research was making sure the dresses matched the time I was writing. The book takes place between 1960 to 1966 and it was important to me that readers feel like they, too, were in that time. I spent a lot of time reading the Albuquerque Journal newspaper from during that period and Greg and I drove around town, matching addresses and locations. Estate sales also helped me see the insides of houses, some of them so long ago the location of them faded, but the house still fresh in my mind – like the house Ida and Elliott eventually built. And, yes, it has a pool.

I often talk about how clothes tell stories. But patterns do, too, because they are often where the story began.

You can find Ida here on the Chelle Summer web site or on Amazon.