Sewing Lessons

    Home Ec was only for one semester – and the girls all took it – seventh and eighth grade home ec were required for all the girls while the boys spent their time in shop class. Girls, and boys, today would probably wonder why we had put up with such sexist nonsense – change was in the air, just not quite yet.

     Eighth grade home ec was about sewing – we each made a dress for ourselves. Mom and I picked out what looked like an easy pattern for me – straight up and down, nothing fancy – and then we picked out material. In class we learned about pinning the pattern to the material, and cutting the pieces; we were taught about darts – and I think I was able to master the darts and the straight seams – but the sleeves were impossible, and Mom put them in for me at home. And the zipper up the back I never got right – every time I put it in, I ended up taking all the stitches out again to retry it better. If I had gotten the zipper in correctly, all that would have been left after that was the hem, and I was sure I knew the basics of hemming. But time ran out – and Mom ended up doing the zipper and hem for me. She was not supposed to do all those things – and I was surprised that she did – if it weren't for Mom, I would most likely have failed home ec. Sewing a dress was harder than making toast like in seventh grade. And yet one could say that home ec had failed me – I don't like sewing.

     Such a disappointment I was to Mom who enjoyed sewing so much! Mom used to say that she loved the challenge of putting pieces together to create a finished product - kind of like passing one's time playing a video game requiring an artistic flair!

Mom sewed clothes for me for years. I always knew what color outfit I was getting for Christmas if I noticed the color of the pieces of thread I might see on the floor near the sewing machine! (Mom would sew at night after we went to bed if it was something that was supposed to be a gift or surprise!).

     The last thing Mom made for me, at the age of 30, was a maternity shirt when I was expecting my first child. It was a red plaid pattern and plenty big enough for my girth. It is the shirt I wore to the hospital the day Sarah was born – when I took my clothes off the nurse implored me to burn everything since I would not be needing maternity wear after that day and it would only remind me of how large I had been.

     But the nurse did not know the significance of the shirt! I kept it for a while, however I think I had gotten rid of it before Amanda's gestation came along.

     My dislike of sewing might have been inherited from my grandmother, Mom's Mom. Granny was of a generation where one did things with the hands – all the time. If you weren't cooking, you were knitting or embroidering, or mending.....or sewing. Granny was always making stuff to sell at the church bazaar – aprons, pot holders, sock monkeys. She was proud of the big used coat given to her one time that she remade into two or three smaller coats for her children when they were very young. So Granny sewed, and we all mistakenly thought she actually enjoyed it.

     When I was getting married, Granny asked if there was anything she could do for the wedding. So one day I asked if she could hem the groom's pants for us? I thought she would be thrilled to have something to do – a valuable task that she was so good at. Big mistake – Granny seemed insulted as she got out the sewing machine and did the hemming.

     And somehow, it happened again. When we were getting the baby room ready for Sarah four years later, Granny suggested that instead of buying curtains, I could purchase a colorful set of sheets, and they could be made into curtains. So I bought some sheets, and they were beautiful with rainbows - lots of colors! And I took the sheets to Granny's for her to make them into the curtains just as she had suggested. But she muttered once again as she got out the sewing machine, and this time I actually heard her curse! It was the only time I ever heard my grandmother use an off-color word.

     The curtains turned out beautiful, and I let the rest of the family know that Granny really would rather be asked to do anything else but sew, even if she was good at it!

     So the I hate sewing gene came from my grandmother, skipped a generation – blessing my Mom with a love of sewing and creating and being good at reading instructions, and being good at finishing what she started, only to have the I hate sewing gene manifest again in Mom's only daughter. Alas.

     The dress I kind of made myself back in eighth grade home economics class, except for the sleeves and the zipper and the hem, did get worn a few times – I think the material was a grey plaid pattern.

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