How I learned to sew....

I came home from a work event tonight about surrogacy (what a tough issue and there's still no clear answer) spent. I had hoped to get to practice but I was running too late and was too spent to do anything but head home on a raining Tuesday night. I needed to go home and do some things around the apartment, get laundry done, clean-up. (Lara's dad is coming to visit for a few days and I needed to get my crafty mess put away.)

I had purchased a plastic box to put my fabric in - the scraps and various pieces had outgrown the bankers box. I have a smaller thread box that always needs to be sorted after each project. It holds about 30 or 40 spools of thread. A majority of them are from the 1970's and are hand-me-downs from my mother. They're stamped "35 cents" and have old golden labels that are peeling off. A majority are in a varying shade of red. There are others 1970's colors - peach, mint green, pale yellow, pink and plastic black. There are a few brighter colors from my samba days like lily pad green, bright turquoise and metallic thread. An even smaller plastic box holds "sewing stuff" - seam ripper, Velcro circles, hooks and eyes, glue gun, iron cleaner (white wax candle to clean your iron), buttons and zippers. These smaller things were organized earlier in my sewing career.

I learned to sew in 8th grade when I had to take a half year of "home economics" - or at least I learned how to sew a stuff animal and some basic stitches. Then when I called the Peace Corps and tired to join (also in 8th grade) they suggested that I join my local 4-H. Unfortunately, my local 4-H was all about sewing. I didn't want to sew. If I was going to do 4-H I wanted to deal with animals (which I didn't have) or something else - not sewing - which was such a sill, girly thing.

In the midst of our second year of the samba group, I got a call from one of the seamstresses. She said "You having a sewing machine don't you?" I said no, but my mother did. 4 hours later I had a sewing machine and enough fabric to make 4 - 7' penguin puppets for our parade in a week. It was a near miracle. And since then, I've been sewing - tons. I rarely use a pattern and I'll be damned if I can make anything that I can wear to work but I can make penguin puppets, helmet panties, Judy Jetson skirts and other terribly sparkly, glittery, shiny, stretchy useful things.