Sunday I started searching for those articles and found them in a file titled "webs". In reading some of the articles I remembered vaguely about putting some of them on to this Blogger site which led me to search for them. That in turn led me to reading other articles from the past and before I knew it I was having a great laugh. No wonder people keep journals.
Once a week I'm going to post one of my old blog entries so that they are eventually all tucked into one website. I shall add to them or fix them (some of the writing is horrendous, but I remind myself I had to write between naps back then), or leave them as is. (All new additions, corrections, etc. I'll put in italics.) Whatever I feel like. Because I can.
Cue music: It's my blog and I can do what I want to! Do what I want to! Do what I want to!
Wednesday, August 28, 2002
Learning to sew
I have decided to learn to sew. My children are both in school and from
9:15 a.m. to 11:40 a.m. I have time to myself. I have made a bucket list and one of the items on it is to learn to sew. It is a good activity for a SAHM. My mother-in-law, Mary Anne, agreed to teach me and my neighbor, Howard, offered me the use of his
late wife's sewing machine. I was more than ready.
The last time I sewed was in my
8th grade Home Economics class. Back in the day students alternated Home Economics classes with Industrial Arts classes so that we could learn the fine art of cooking and sewing as well as home repair and woodworking. My first project was a wallet made out of
denim. I painted my brother's initials on it in green fluorescent
paint and gave it to him as a gift. It was really quite hideous, way too large to fit in a pocket, but I was very proud of it. I vaguely remember him saying he would never be caught dead with
it.
Our final project in Home Economics was to sew an outfit that we would then model during some school event. I chose to sew a jumpsuit. I chose this because it was something I thought very chic in the pictures printed on the pattern and it was something my mother would never think of buying for me. The fabric was gabardine. I had never heard of gabardine
then, and frankly have never heard of it since, but I liked saying the word. I felt worldly when I told people my jumpsuit was gabardine. The gabardine fabric was
tan. I imagined how great I would look modeling in it.
In most of my school projects I
had help from my mother. I laugh at that statement now because when it came to school projects like the science fair or anything involving poster board our parents help back in the day consisted of purchasing the materials the day before a project was due because that is when we remembered we needed them. In all fairness though, my mother did help me when it came to homework, studying, and checking my English papers.
This, however, was not her forte. My
mother did not sew. We did not have a sewing machine. She could sew on a button, but when my father's pants pockets had holes in them she repaired them with a stapler. Any other jobs that required more extensive sewing she passed on to our neighbor across the street. She did have a sewing box, but when the assignment for the jumpsuit was given we had to go out and fill the box with a few more items. Because the project was a big one, and because I was excited in the beginning, I did not leave the project to the last minute. My mother was determined
to help me and together we laid out the fabric and pattern on the dining room
table and went to work cutting.
I hated it. It was too time
consuming, too precise, and it made my back hurt to be hunched over the dining table for that long period of time. At school the teacher would help, but she had twenty other little seamstresses in need and I spent a lot of time with the seam ripper. I was not too keen on this sewing stuff. When it became clear that the deadline was drawing near, my mother
packed me and my fabric into the car and drove us two and a half hours to my
Great Aunt Helen's.
Aunt Helen was a retired Home
Economics teacher. My mother turned me over to her, throwing her hands into the air and then hiding. Aunt Helen took me into her bedroom where she had her sewing machine, and I tried hard to listen to her instructions, but I spent more time studying the bedroom, a place we were not allowed to play in. Aunt Helen talked to me about darts and hemming, and I had to climb in and out of the jumpsuit while she pinned and made marks. My mind was crammed with all sorts of sewing related instructions and my eyes were glazed after just a couple of hours. Realizing this, Aunt Helen finished the outfit. I think I
got a C on it. It was the end of my sewing career.....
Until now..... Now I have decided
that I will learn to sew, and I by golly I will sew my children clothes! My mother-in-law brought with her a simple pattern that she had purchased and we set to work. Surprisingly, my 8th grade
education came back to me as we worked. I recalled back stitching, pining
patterns, bobbins, and that chalk thing used on fabric. We laid out
the pattern on my dining room table, and various questions came to mind. Why in the world were these
patterns made out of tissue paper. Why wouldn't one use something more
durable? Why for heaven's sake were all of the sizes on the same tissue paper so that I had to get my own tissue
paper to trace out the pattern of the size I needed? My back started
hurting. My mind started wondering. Mary Anne started doing more of the work. At one point we had to stop when we realized
we didn't have any interfacing. What the hell was that? (I had to go to the fabric store and purchase it, but I still don't know what it
is. I've looked on all the dresses in my daughter's closets and I have not seen any with interfacing. I should look it up in a dictionary).
When we finally finished cutting out the pattern my mother-in-law dusted off her hands and left.
She handed me the instructions, told me to start sewing, and then SHE LEFT.
I stood at the door thinking she was just kidding, but when she drove away I knew I was on my own. I quit for the day and contemplated giving up sewing all together, but the next day I rallied. I sat down at the borrowed machine and got to work and something incredulous happened. More memories of my 8th grade
sewing class started coming back to me. I remembered the machine jamming. I
remembered the bobbin thread losing its place. I remembered pushing too fast on the peddle and the stitches going crazy all over the material. I remembered how to pull
out a stitch with the special puller outer which I then remembered was called a seam ripper. I remembered that I hated
sewing.
I've not gotten very far. I shall not give up, but I've started thinking I should have started with something easier...like a pillow.
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