Almost every morning I get up early, grab a cup of coffee and head to my sewing room. It looks like someone’s Pintrest board exploded in there and then got rammed by a Hobby Lobby truck that overturned. But it is my chaos and I thrive in it.
When I was in middle school, girls had to take Home Ec. That’s what it was called then, not FCCLA just Home Ec. And all girls took it. No boys. It was a long time ago. I digress.
Our teacher was Mrs. Hollingsworth, a woman who had no business teaching, or anywhere around children. My guess is she was too mean to be a secretary – that’s what they were called then, not administrative assistants, just secretaries – and there just weren’t a lot of other choices for women in those days. Nurse, maybe. Again, I digress.
But the woman was just plain mean. She would watch a student do something the wrong way just so she could make them do it over her way. I well remember doubling a hem in a dress and hand stitching it, only to have her force me to take it all out, remove the existing hem, shorten the garment and re-stitch the hem.
My grandmother was livid. Our impoverished family did not cut off garments. That shortened its usable life as we children grew.
So, whether it was just my personality or from being caught between a rock of Mrs. Hollingsworth and the hard place of my grandmother, I developed a distaste for sewing. I learned enough from my older sister to be dangerous, and I did a little sewing in high school because I wanted one thing or another and making it was the only way to get it. But doing it for fun was not on my horizon.
Then, one late August day in the early 1980s I was in line at Kmart behind a woman with a shopping cart full of clothing. As we waited she explained that between herself and her second husband, they had five children who were going back to school. Their wardrobe had been on layaway the entire school vacation and she was finally taking it home. The bill, when she checked out, was $185.
Now, I know it is not unheard of to spend that much today on a single pair of jeans or shoes. But that was a lot of money in the 80s. I said to myself, ‘You idiot, you are going to have two girls in school at the same time. you’d better learn to sew.’ Of course, we would go on to have four girls, but I digress.
I went over to Sears and found a slightly damaged Kenmore machine on clearance and used egg money to pay for it. Then I went to one of the two fabric stores in town and bought a few cheap remnants and taught myself to sew.
I had some help. George W. Trippon was on PBS using his old Singer and Nancy Zieman had her own show where she used the best machines money could buy.
The kids kept coming and I kept making our clothes. Eventually I worked at Cloth World for five years, learning that I should have paid attention in math class because there is a use for fractions after all.
It was a good thing that I was making the girls’ clothes because they were so tall and skinny very little off the rack would fit. I even bought a serger and made their underpinnings and pjs.
For a while I was making decent side money sewing for others, historical costumes, formals and wedding dresses. But by the time the girls were in high school they didn’t want Mama making clothes for them, and I was a full time journalist who didn’t take the time to sew.
Then one winter in South Dakota the Boy, who was a toddler, needed a warmer blanket. I pulled out a scrap bag and decided I was going to learn to quilt.
I didn’t know I couldn’t do it that way, so I just bailed off in there and did it. Finally, more than 20 years later, I can make the math come out right. Usually.
So it is that I am in my happy space of pandemonium each morning cutting perfectly good fabric into little bitty pieces just so that I can sew it back together again. I can obsess over an eight of an inch mismatch. Mrs. Hollingsworth would not recognize me.
I wonder if there are any folks out there who think they might like to learn to sew. I’d be happy to show them what I know, however little it might be. But be warned – your early mornings could be spent in a quiet little room bursting at the seams with fabric.